Trump has reshaped American attitudes to a remarkable extent on a trio of his key issues—race, immigration, and trade.
There’s just one catch: The public is turning *against* Trump’s views. https://t.co/UdNg3cXu0f
— David A. Graham (@GrahamDavidA) August 19, 2019
Trump will be citing this as a positive no later than Wednesday, because isn’t all publicity good publicity?
… A Reuters poll released today contains a trove of interesting data on race. Trump has long sought to use racial tension to gain political leverage, but this summer he has become especially explicit about exploiting and exaggerating racial divisions, with a series of racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, and then on their colleague Elijah Cummings, as a strategy ahead of the 2020 election.
But the Reuters poll casts doubt on that strategy: “The Reuters analysis also found that Americans were less likely to express feelings of racial anxiety this year, and they were more likely to empathize with African Americans. This was also true for white Americans and whites without a college degree, who largely backed Trump in 2016.”
Among the details, the number of whites who say “America must protect and preserve its White European heritage” has sunk nine points since last August. The percentages of whites, and white Republicans, who strongly agree that “white people are currently under attack in this country” have each dropped by roughly 25 points from the same time two years ago.
It isn’t entirely clear what is motivating these changes. As Ashley Jardina, a political scientist at Duke, told me recently, there has been a 10 percent drop in the number of Americans who espouse white identity politics since Trump entered office. Many members of that group interpreted the election of Barack Obama, the first black president, as a threat to their group, and with Obama out of office, they may feel less threatened. Jardina also noted, though, that Trump’s most explicit racist rhetoric turns off voters who may feel threatened but don’t exhibit classical racial prejudice…Meanwhile, opinion shifts like the ones on race appear elsewhere. Consider immigration, which is Trump’s signature issue—though it is also inextricable from race, especially given Trump’s focus on and rhetoric about Hispanic immigration.
Reuters found that white Americans are 19 percent more supportive of a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants than they were four years ago, and slightly less supportive of increased deportations. Other polls find related results. A record-high number of Americans—75 percent—said in 2018 that immigration is good for the United States. Although the Trump administration took steps last week to limit even legal immigration, the Trump presidency has seen an increase in the number of Americans who support more legal immigration—not just among Democrats, but even slightly among Republicans…
Raw polling can, admittedly, be somewhat misleading on its own. Progressives have for years lamented the gap between the fairly liberal policies that the public says it favors and those that its elected representatives actually pursue. One reason for that is not everyone votes, and those who don’t vote tend toward the left.
But the Reuters poll offers reason to believe that the shifts it documents are directly relevant to the coming election. The poll found that “people who rejected racial stereotypes were more interested in voting in the 2020 general election than those who expressed stronger levels of anti-black or anti-Hispanic biases.” That wasn’t the case in 2016, when Americans who held strong antiblack views were more politically engaged…
Sunlight, as they say, is a disinfectant. Sometimes when people look directly at the prejudices they’ve been parroting, they finally realize how horrible they are…
Frankensteinbeck
I personally explain it with ‘A whole lot of whites who were able to believe that racism was dead or dying in the United States have been forced to see that it is alive and huge and dominating our politics.’ Trump has been a shock and an eye-opener to the comfortable and unconcerned.
Yarrow
People really are sick of him and his administration. It’s exhausting.
In completely unsurprising news:
danielx
If even one….but there is no hope of that happening with his hard core supporters.
cain
it’s always good to know that we are rejecting deplorables. Just shows that we can continue have our trust in our people. It takes awhile, but we always will try to do the right thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: No, really? I would never have guessed.
The Dangerman
442 Days until the election. 519 to the Inauguration. Wonder how Trump finds a way to go golfing instead….
442. Rather fitting as 42 means Jackie Robinson.
dmsilev
@Yarrow: I’m shocked. Trump showing a short attention span and talking out of both sides of his mouth? That never happens.
cain
@danielx:
The other interesting thing is the role of mega churches and evangelists. The whole thing is filled with grift and corruption that people are leaving the faith quickly. What your being taught and what is being exhibited in terms of behavior is finally coming home to roost. The one reddit thread I was reading had a lot of folks that turned on evangelicals and either went to other religions or just became atheist.
That’s going to create a lot of concern for the grifters future income cuz it’s all those old folks that are giving away their social security money.
cain
@Yarrow:
Did he actually have any interest to begin with? He only was on that train because of the attention.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
This.
A lot of people were/are secure in their little bubbles. trump has smashed all those little bubbles. The people you describe haven’t been exposed to a lot of the racism that can readily seen in this country, if you bother to look at all. They just haven’t looked, it hasn’t been necessary. And with all of the republican presidents of the last 60 yrs they could get away with this. But trump has destroyed the facade of the republican party. Partly because he didn’t understand any of the code words, and didn’t/doesn’t give a shit about them. And the rest is that he is a massive racist and always has been, he was taught by the best and while he learned little else, he learned racism. And narcissism. Such a fine specimen of humanity. Not.
AnotherBruce
@cain: He obviously had as much interest in gun control as he did with infrastructure.
James E Powell
The key demographic is white women, no college. This is the one group that I think might be persuaded to do something different than what they did in 2016. I read and hear everyone else digging in, clinging even harder to the bullshit justifications they used last time.
Yarrow
@cain: The attention on the issue forced him to say something about it. Sadly, it’ll probably take yet another shooting to get him/Republicans to say something about it again.
@AnotherBruce: Since every week is infrastructure week does that also mean that every week is gun safety week?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@James E Powell: white women with college (ie soccer moms) have switched. That’s why we crushed them in the suburbs during the midterms.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
NBC Poll — August 19
Free Trade
(2015) Good 51% – Bad 41% (+10)
(Today) Good 64% – Bad 27% (+37)
AnotherBruce
@Yarrow: Depends on whether he can hold two thoughts at a time. “Magic 8 ball says “Not likely” or something.
SRW1
@Yarrow:
Total shocker!
FlipYrWhig
@Yarrow: I think he talks on the phone to his New York rich friends and they say “You should do something about guns, it would get you great press.” So then he’s into it. Then he talks to the people in charge of the reelection campaign and those people say “Your best chance at getting reelected is getting the people who already voted for you once to come out again, and they like guns, so you can’t do anything to lose them.” So then he’s not into it anymore. As usual he’s caught between wanting to do things that impress rich people and wanting to do things that make the people at his rallies cheer. So he goes back and forth and back and forth.
cckids
When he decided to run for Pres., Trump & co apparently forgot a key lesson of con men: move on before the marks catch on. He should have paid attention to Harold Hill and the Wizard of Oz.
Yutsano
@Yarrow: shockedfry.gif.
Also: what’s this about Joseph Kennedy III possibly challenging Ed Markey?
SFAW
@AnotherBruce:
I think you meant “one thought at a time,” to which the Magic 8-Ball would reply “What, are you fucking joking? You’re joking, right?”
SFAW
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
According to Rev. J.R. “Bob” Dobbs:
Bleeding Head Good! — 100 percent, Healed Head Bad! – 100 percent
oatler.
@SFAW: “You’ll all be eating roach crap by the end of the century!”
another Dobbs quote.
Jay
Twitter has proved usefull.
Billionaire Marc Cuban is getting brutally ratioed on “Canadian Health Care” by some guy named Turd Guy. The Pile-on is epic.
SFAW
@oatler.:
He’s a prophet, I tells ya!
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I know that some people’s attitudes about racism have changed (for the better) and I’m thankful for that. But at least some of the opposition to PussBurgler is coming from (suburban, well-off white) women who see his misogyny (and the concrete effects thereof), and see their own end there. And sure, some of them are learning about racism, and some of them will remain anti-racist after this horrible time passes, but I think we should be prepared for some nontrivial number of them to return to being the comfortably and unconsciously racist suburban moms we all saw them as before.
I mean, it’s still excellent that they’re against President John, but seriously, some of them are going to end up as allies like Josef Stalin. Which still means they’re allies right now.
I had my own experience with that, with a (former) friend who was all het up about Shitlord’s misogyny, but had her own barely-concealed homophobia (which sometimes came out of hiding, ugh) and was completely comfortable recitiing the Lee Atwater catechism. I’m happy she’s all up with Resisting Shitler, but I don’t expect her to stick around for anything else, b/c hey, she’s clearly a homophobe and will vote for Kasich (literally) and his balanced budgets.
aarrgghh
new rule: use the word “strategy” with dolt45 and get a rap on the knuckles.
SFAW
@Jay:
I was going to attempt a “joke” about how at least we have an administration who will try to get tough with Russia about their obvious sabotaging of the rad detectors, but … for some reason, I just can’t anymore. Maybe after I get some caffeine in me.
Gvg
Well unfortunately some of those who don’t think white culture is under attack anymore, it’s because Trump and not Obama is President.
Now, there are a lot of people who have learned racism is serious still.
I would say there have also been a lot of people, mostly women, who have woke up on misogyny too.
I don’t think the backlash on hypocrisy in religion has built up enough, but it really should. I am not connected enough to judge that though.
Trump is awful in multiple ways, so different groups hate him, who might not stick together after he is gone.
Chris Johnson
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: “Free Trade” and “Donald Fucking Trump” are not the only options
J R in WV
@cain:
Jesus told his followers to pray in private in Matthew 6. So all the big churches are violating that rule. I don’t know how they can square the giant buildings awash in money with Matthew… wait, yes I can, their giant income depends upon squaring the giant buildings awash in money with Matthew…
Nevermind.
jimmiraybob
Wait until their precious Party finally guts Social Security, “Obama Care,” etc., and the $$$ from seniors and the ill with no insurance dries up and people start looking to the churches for aid. I suspect they will suddenly discover Positive Cash Flow Jesus.