Tag: Americas

Chronicle File Photo Research on white Americans in political science has historically concentrated on racial prejudice, but a Duke professor is shifting the focus to white racial identity. Ashley Jardina, assistant professor of political science, provides a new perspective on race and racial attitudes in American politics in her book "White Identity Politics." "One is in fact racial prejudice; we know that racial prejudice still really informs a lot of white people's political preferences. But the second is also, independently, this desire that whites have to try to preserve their group's privileged status." To examine these trends, she analyzed survey data from the American National Election Studies and from her own research. She pointed to a couple of factors that have made white identity salient in recent years. One factor motivating the trend Jardina found in white identity is immigration and the consequent demographic shifts in the United States, she explained. "Subsequently, some whites are now much more aware of the importance of their racial identity.” Although racial prejudice is an out-group sentiment—when one group dislikes another group—white identity is an in-group sentiment about favoring your own group. It's motivated by wanting to just keep the power, the status, the privileges that you have and the things you benefit from as a member of your own group,” Jardina said. “Then this research became even more relevant in 2016 when Donald Trump entered the scene and was clearly actively appealing to whites and to their sense of identity," she said.

“The shift in whites without a college degree away from the Democratic Party begins as the Democratic Party becomes identified as the party of civil rights,” starting in the 1960s, Robby P. Jones, the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, told me. Therefore, white people with and without college degrees were equally as likely to be Democrats or Republicans. But by 2012, white voters without a college degree were distinctly more likely to vote Republican than those with college degrees. In the 2016 election, 48 percent of college-educated white voters voted for Trump, compared with 66 percent of non-college-educated white voters. Every year, on its American Values Survey, the Public Religion Research Institute asks Americans whether they “think American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better, or has it mostly changed for the worse?” Fifty percent of Americans say that it’s gotten better in this year’s poll, and 47 percent say that it has gotten worse. Fifty-eight percent of college-educated whites this year say that America has gotten better since 1950, while 57 percent of non-college-educated whites say that it’s gotten worse. He’s capitalizing on the nostalgia that non-college-educated white voters have for America’s past. When researchers control for voter attitudes on race in addition to white voters’ education level, Tesler says, the diploma divide disappears. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans, the survey found, had “some” to “little” confidence in colleges as institutions. The diploma divide is wide, and the closer Republicans embrace Trump, the wider it may get.

This has subsequently made Brennan one of the more alarmed and strident critics of Donald Trump — a president for whom the idea of anything existing outside partisan politics seems inconceivable — and of his Republican allies in Congress. “But I never witnessed the type of reckless partisan behavior I am now seeing from Nunes and House Republicans.” Brennan has since called Trump a “disgraced demagogue” and declared his July news conference with Vladimir Putin “nothing short of treason.” In August, Trump fired back, stripping Brennan of his security clearance (as Brennan had all but dared him to do) and calling him a “loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets of our country!” [Read our profile of John Brennan.] On social media, Sayoc’s awakening — the point where he shifted from posting about cars and women to a manic, rabid form of politics — is clearly identifiable: He was radicalized during Donald Trump’s campaign for president. In “The Polarizers,” his 2017 history of postwar partisanship, the Colgate University political scientist Sam Rosenfeld notes that from the 1930s to the 1970s, the Gallup organization regularly asked Americans whether they would like to see Republicans and Democrats replaced with ideological parties, “one for the Liberals and one for the Conservatives.” At no point did more than a third of Americans like the idea. In the late 1940s, liberal Democratic activists pushed their party to formally embrace the cause, partly as a matter of principle but also as a power move: Backing civil rights would mean marginalizing the party’s Southern conservative barons, who were also at odds with the liberals’ vision for expanding the New Deal welfare state. It’s true that the public’s dissatisfaction with partisan fighting has increased over the course of this stalemate. Over the years, the ratings that partisans have given their own parties have not changed much, but the ratings they give the opposing party have plunged, from around 50 in the Carter years to less than 30 during the Obama administration. Donald Trump, of course, exists to shatter taboos. Instead of solemnly interrupting his midterm campaigning schedule after the Louisville and Pittsburgh shootings, he continued; hours after Sayoc’s arrest, Trump regaled a crowd in Charlotte, N.C., with the same demonology of Democrats that Sayoc embraced. Forty-three years ago, Rusher sought to leverage civil rights and identity politics to sever “businessmen, manufacturers, hard-hats, blue-collar workers and farmers” from the Democratic Party — a project he framed as necessary to make the Republican Party stand for something bigger and more enduring than the sum of its individual politicians.

(CNN)Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger shared his frustrations about how "nothing is getting done" in American politics on CNN's "The Axe Files," airing Saturday at 7p.m. ET on CNN. "I'm very little interested in politics, because it sucks," he said when asked about President Trump's choice to focus his midterm platform on the economy, the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and the northward march of migrants in Central America. Schwarzenegger said he found America's lack of immigration policy reform and crumbling infrastructure particularly embarrassing. "To me, it's more important to get the job done rather than ... worry about a caravan coming or not." Schwarzenegger recently campaigned for redistricting initiatives in Colorado and Michigan. "People wanted someone from the outside, people were sick and tired of what was going on in Washington," he said. "How long can you talk about building more infrastructure in America ... all those kind of things, and nothing is happening? While he compared the "outsider" dynamic of President Trump's campaign to that of his gubernatorial runs in 2003 and 2006, Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, cannot make a presidential bid.

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN)If the Democrats make gains in the midterm elections next week, their lawmakers could assert themselves more aggressively on the foreign policy issues that have defined much of Donald Trump's presidency -- trade, climate change and the Iran deal, to name a few. The President is now focused on immigration and the narrative that the US is about to be "invaded" by Central American migrants. Trump continues to warn of dangers from abroad -- migrants, the Chinese, Muslims -- and then offers hot-button solutions: troops at the border, tariffs, travel bans. The President is using the politics of fear. is experiencing some of the same political maelstroms that have played out in other parts of the world. In the two weeks leading up to the vote, pipe bombs were mailed to Democratic leaders, Trump critics and CNN. Trump's misinformation campaign continues. Fox News and the White House appear to have coordinated false narratives about the migrants heading toward the country. These scenes of division, anger and fear, however, are not exclusive to Trump and his America. America is unlikely to settle down after the midterms.

As black women, our very existence is political. It’s time for us — whether we’re in politics or not — to take the decision-making into our own hands. It’s time for us — and we mean all of us, whether we’re in politics or not — to take the decision-making into our own hands. As Leah often tells her congregation, “Sitting in church all day won’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage will make you a car.” First, let’s remember our history. It’s time for women of color to take positions of power within political parties that have been denied to us. It was in that tradition that we came together for the Power Rising Summit. Use your power to help other women rise Third, use your power wisely to help others. To those women who are through the door and at the table, we say “Congratulations, you’ve made it! How have you made the path easier for another sister? We are committed to victory for our Sister Candidates.

Advertisement I recently conducted a study on a broad range of workplace issues, including how the stress of our increasingly divisive politics is affecting worker health, productivity and relationships with colleagues. And all this has serious consequences for worker health and productivity. Over a quarter said political divisions have increased their stress levels, making it harder to get things done. For example, back in September 2016, 17 per cent of those surveyed by the American Psychological Association said they felt tense or stressed out as a result of political discussions at work. The association did a follow-up survey in May 2017 already revealing increased stress levels, a drop in worker productivity and other consequences following the election of Donald Trump. My data puts it at 26 per cent. I also reached out to 20 business leaders from a variety of industries whom I have become acquainted with over the years in my role as a professor – to find out what company managers are doing about politics-related stress. Another was that banning all political discussions was also bad policy, since it opened the door to lawsuits over free speech issues. They seemed to think a lot of managers appeared to be ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away. At the end of the day, to be fair, there’s little companies can do about how politically divided the nation becomes.

Alexander, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Pittsburgh, identifies as a Democrat but said he began watching Thursday's proceedings as neither a supporter nor a detractor of the nominee. That changed with Kavanaugh's testimony. Alexander found Ford's account of Kavanaugh and a friend laughing after the alleged attack the hearing's most moving moment, and he wondered if that detail might sway Republicans. Both seemed believable, Jacobs said, but she felt convinced toward the end that Kavanaugh was not guilty. "When you're a true victim, you remember where it happened, you know who was in the room, you also remember every single detail," she said. Almeida said she doesn't doubt Ford was victimized, but believes Democrats convinced her to wrongly blame Kavanaugh for what happened. "I remember one of the questions asked of Anita Hill was something like 'Are you a woman scorned?'" "You aren't going to hear that in this hearing. Jacobson, a first-year law student at Mitchell Hamline School of Law who identifies as a Democrat, watched the hearing with colleagues in a classroom. One of Jacobson's close friends was sexually assaulted in high school, an experience the friend said would scar her for life.

Donald Trump has received an enormous amount of criticism for the damage he’s done to constitutional and democratic norms. It’s the men in this country. When America was founded, whites had more rights than blacks, men had more rights than women, and rich white men had more rights than everybody else. America has worked -- as a matter of law, politics and moral education -- to live up to our ideals of individual rights, and we’ve made enormous progress. It is of course true that most rapes are committed by men, but that doesn’t mean most men are rapists. Nor does it mean that because some other men committed rape, a man who didn’t is guilty or loses the presumption of innocence. Over and over, opponents of Kavanaugh are arguing that Ford is credible because of the actions of other men. Credible means “believable.” It does not mean “true.” And yet the argument made a thousand times a day on cable news and social media is that because the charge is (allegedly) believable, it must also be believed. Individuals have a right to confront their accuser. Partisans cannot prove an individual’s guilt by invoking the real or alleged crimes of others.