Untitled. Two-Party Sysstem Obscures Complexity of Race. Joe Biden has encountered a number of awkward moments with Black voters this summer.
Whether telling Black voters that they “ain’t Black” if they’re considering voting for Trump or telling reporters that the Latino community is “incredibly diverse,” “unlike” the Black community, Biden, like many other politicians, has repeatedly failed to demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of Black people’s politics. This is likely a byproduct of the fact that Black Americans are nearly uniform in their support for the Democratic Party.
According to data from the 2016 American National Election Study, for example, 82 percent of Black Americans identified as Democrats, with 90 percent casting their ballot for the Democratic Party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton. Only 10 percent voted for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. Republicans and Democrats Don't Understand Each Other. David Pozen, Eric Talley, and Julian Nyarko: Republicans and Democrats are describing two different Constitutions According to the Democratic caricature, most Republicans stridently oppose immigration, hold deeply prejudiced views about religious minorities, and are blind to the existence of racism or sexism. Asked to guess what share of Republicans believe that immigration can strengthen America so long as it is “properly controlled,” for example, Democrats estimated about half; actually, nearly nine in 10 agreed with this sentiment.
Democrats also estimated that four in 10 Republicans believe that “many Muslims are good Americans,” and that only half recognize that “racism still exists in America.” In reality, those figures were two-thirds and four in five. Unsurprisingly, Republicans are also prone to caricature Democrats. Trump's Surprising Multi-Racial Appeal. The Six Wings Of The Democratic Party. There’s a lot of news right now about conflicts within the Democratic Party, and similar stories will likely continue to pop up for the next two years.
Much of this is normal and unsurprising. The American political system has only two major parties, resulting in those parties being large and internally diverse — a political reporter could write a “Democrats divided” or “Republicans divided” story virtually any day of any year. The Five Wings Of The Republican Party. When President Trump entered office, it wasn’t clear if he would consolidate control of the Republican Party — or even his own administration. We used to write a lot about various power centers in his administration, for example. But the president gradually forced out people who didn’t agree with him.
Congressional Republicans buck the White House on occasion, but that’s more the exception that proves the rule. And special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe ending without the president being directly implicated, according to the attorney general, both removes any doubt that Trump will be running for president in 2020 and gives Republicans skeptical of Trump one less argument to make against him, thereby strengthening his influence within the GOP. So describing Republicans as divided between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces no longer makes much sense — the GOP is overwhelmingly a pro-Trump party. Red State, Blue City; Urban-Rural Divide is Splitting America. The voting data suggest that people don't make cities liberal -- cities make people liberal.
Here, courtesy of Princeton's Robert Vanderbai, is an electoral map that captures the divisions: The only major cities that voted Republican in the 2012 presidential election were Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, and Salt Lake City. With its dominant Mormon population, Mitt Romney was a lock in the Utah capital; Phoenix nearly voted for Obama. After that, the largest urban centers to tilt Republican included Wichita, Lincoln, Neb., and Boise. The gap is so stark that some of America's bluest cities are located in its reddest states. Because winning a state's electoral votes requires only a simple majority, a single city can change the entire game. The Moderate Middle Is A Myth. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Independent voters will decide the election.
Or better yet: Moderate voters will decide the election. Or, wait for it … If Democrats can move to the middle, they will win in 2020. Reece Farewell as Pres of MO College Dems. It has truly been an honor to be your President this last year.
It has not been a year without challenges, 2020 for many of us was the most challenging year of our lives thus far. A global pandemic, a national recession, and the emotional despair that arose from the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as well as the recent white supremacist violence in Atlanta was a lot for anyone to navigate.
But all of you did in some form or another and so did we. The AHA moment of White Privilege.□ In... - Donna Payne-Hardy. So, What is Identity Politics? - Jim’s Newsletter. Whatever “identity politics” means, its pervasive influence requires an initial declaration: I am opposed to racism, sexism, imperialism, improper sexual intolerance, improper cultural intolerance, and improper classism (probably left something out of the catechism).
This vow won’t help much in certain left-leaning circles, particularly in light of the rest of this newsletter. Old white male lawyers like me are not only biologically incorrect, but also they are presumptively unwoke. Both sides are likely to attack (or ignore) whenever anyone ventures into the no person’s land between the Culture Wars’ battlelines. Untitled. Since right-wing insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6 with the vague but violent idea of taking over the government, observers are paying renewed attention to the threat of right-wing violence in our midst.
For all our focus on fighting socialism and communism, right-wing authoritarianism is actually quite an old threat in our country. The nation’s focus on fighting “socialism” began in 1871, but what its opponents stood against was not government control of the means of production—an idea that never took hold in America—but the popular public policies which cost tax dollars and thus made wealthier people pay for programs that would benefit everyone. Public benefits like highways and hospitals, opponents argued, amounted to a redistribution of wealth, and thus were a leftist assault on American freedom.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that fight against “socialism” took the form of opposition to unionization and Black rights. Untitled. But when he arrived in D.C. on Jan. 4 ahead of the scheduled demonstrations, he said, “15 cop cars” swarmed his Honda Crosstour soon after he passed through the Third Street Tunnel.
Tarrio was wanted on a misdemeanor charge from December accusing him of setting fire to a historic Black church’s Black Lives Matter banner. During the traffic stop, authorities found high-capacity firearm magazines in his backpack, resulting in felony weapons charges, according to court records. QAnon Is an Alternate Reality, But It’s No Game. QAnon conspiracists were in the vanguard of the violent attack on the Capitol; Ashli Babbitt, who was killed in the assault, was a follower.
QAnon sees Democrats not as a political party, but as a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who will be vanquished in a holy war. Ashli Babbitt’s journey to the Capitol, where the Trump and QAnon supporter was fatally shot by police. “It was amazing to get to see the president talk,” Babbitt said, beaming in a video she streamed on Facebook early Wednesday afternoon that was later published by TMZ.
“We are now walking down the inaugural path to the Capitol building. Three million-plus people.” Untitled. Despite these delusions, Ms. Gilbert — a self-described mystic who has written four books, with titles like “Swami Soup” — mostly struck me as a New Age eccentric who could use some time away from screens. Untitled. As Republican officials scrambled to prove their fealty to the President, some joined Gohmert in invoking the possibility of violent rebellion. In December, the Arizona Republican Party reposted a tweet from Ali Alexander, a chief organizer of the Stop the Steal movement, that stated, “I am willing to give my life for this fight.”
The Twitter account of the Republican National Committee appended the following comment to the retweet: “He is. Are you?” Alexander is a convicted felon, having pleaded guilty to property theft in 2007 and credit-card abuse in 2008. Antonio French: The insurrection and the devalued currency of whiteness. Seventy-four million people voted for Trump in 2020, nearly 12 million more than in 2016.
It was the second-most votes for president in history, behind only Biden and his 81 million.