Supporting Murder

Emerson College poll:

A majority of voters (68%) think the actions of the killer of the United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, are unacceptable. Seventeen percent find the actions acceptable, while 16% are unsure.

“While 68% of voters overall reject the killer’s actions, younger voters and Democrats are more split — 41% of voters aged 18-29 find the killer’s actions acceptable (24% somewhat acceptable and 17% completely acceptable), while 40% find them unacceptable; 22% of Democrats find them acceptable, while 59% find them unacceptable, this compares to 12% of Republicans and 16% of independents who find the actions acceptable, underscoring shifting societal attitudes among the youngest electorate and within party lines,” [Emerson poll director Spencer] Kimball said.

Men were slightly more inclined to find the actions acceptable compared to women: 19% said the actions were acceptable compared to 14% of women.

Religious Composition of Party Coalitions

 Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.  

From Ryan Burge at Religion Unplugged: 

In 2008 the religious composition of the Republicans was:

~75% white Christians.
~10% non-white Christians.
~10% nones.
~5% everyone else.

In 2020, the composition was:

~70% white Christians.
~10% non-white Christians.
~15% nones.
~5% everyone else. pic.twitter.com/TiTRURz6wp

— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) November 7, 2023

The Democratic coalition in 2020 was this:

~45% non-religious.
~30% white Christians.
~20% non-white Christians.
~5% everyone else.

In 2008 it was:

~35% non-religious.
~40% white Christians.
~20% non-white Christians.
~5% everyone else.

Most Democrats will be nones by 2028. pic.twitter.com/CH0PyWKluE

— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) November 6, 2023

The Partisan Realignment of Business

 The Partisan Realignment of American Business:Evidence from a Survey of Corporate LeadersEitan Hersh and Sarang Shah*August 1, 2023. Abstract 

For decades, the business community has been viewed as a core constituency of the Republican Party. However, several factors, such as corporate prioritization of social values and anti-business sentiment among Republican rank-and-file, suggest a majorcoalitional shift is underway. Scholars have debated whether this shift is an illusion or is real. At the core of this debate is how business leaders navigate two forms of organizational conflict: a.) stakeholder cross-pressure, and b.) policy cross-pressure. To measure cross-pressure, we conduct an original survey of elite business leaders. Our evidence suggests a widespread view that companies are increasingly aligned withthe Democrats, including in alignment on core policy priorities. When companies are cross-pressured, leaders perceive the company as leaning toward the Democrats. The decoupling of business from the Republican coalition represents one of the most significant changes in American politics in decades

Democrats Increasingly Identify as Liberal

Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

After hovering near 50% in recent years, the percentage of Democrats who identify as politically liberal rose four percentage points in 2022 to 54%, a new high for this group. At the same time, the 10% describing themselves as conservative is the lowest to date. Thirty-six percent say their views are moderate, which is typical of the level recorded for Democrats over the past decade.

Longer term, Democrats have been growing more liberal since at least the mid-1990s when Gallup regularly began tracking party groups’ ideological views. The percentage identifying as liberal was 25% in 1994; it rose to 40% by 2010 and 50% by 2017.

As Gallup has reported previously, increased liberal identification among U.S. Democrats has occurred across all demographic categories, but that shift has been particularly pronounced among White Democrats. More than six in 10 White Democrats identified as liberal in 2022, representing a 37-percentage-point increase since 1994. That contrasts with closer to four in 10 Black and Hispanic Democrats identifying as liberal last year, up less than 20 points from 1994.

Partisan Diploma Divide

Katherine Knott at Inside Higher Ed:

The recent midterm elections highlighted the growing educational divide between voters as well as the increasing political polarization in the country—both of which are areas of concern for higher education but not ones that colleges and universities can address on their own.

An initial analysis of polling data from the midterm elections showed that 52 percent of voters with a bachelor’s degree cast their ballots for Democrats; 42 percent of those with a high school degree or less voted for Democrats, according to The Washington Post. In the 2018 election, the gap was about five percentage points.

Polling data from the American Council on Education showed a similar shift. In the 2016 election, 50 percent of voters with a college degree voted for Republicans while 48 percent voted for Democrats. Two years later, 43 percent voted for Republicans while 55 percent voted for Democrats. In 2022, about 46 percent voted for Republicans while 52 percent voted for Democrats.

Religion and Party Polarization

 Daniel A. Cox at the Survey Center on American Life:

During just a single generation, the landscape of American religious belief and behavior has undergone sweeping changes. A growing share of the adult public abstains from regular religious practice. They profess greater doubts about the existence of God and no longer identify with any established religious tradition.[xi] A recent survey found that young adults have far less robust religious experiences compared to previous generations.[xii] And although surveys vary in the exact rate of religious decline, there is no disagreement about the trajectory of American religion.

Among both Democrats and Republicans, there are signs of weakening religious attachments, and nonreligious Americans have increased in number. However, the religious decline is occurring much more rapidly among Democrats than Republicans. Across measures of membership, salience, and affiliation, Democrats have experienced a steeper drop in their level of religious commitment.

Religious membership among the public has plummeted over the past decade, but the decline has proceeded unevenly (Figure 4).[xiii] Democratic religious membership has fallen further than among Republicans, more than doubling the partisan gap in religious membership over the past two decades. Today, less than half (45 percent) of Democrats report being a member of a church, synagogue, mosque, or other religious congregation. In the late 1990s, more than seven in 10 (71 percent) Democrats reported that they belonged to a church or other place of worship.

Republican religious membership has also fallen in the past couple of decades, although not nearly as far. Sixty percent of Republicans say they are members of a religious congregation, compared to 77 percent two decades earlier. This differential rate of decline has substantially widened the partisan gap in religious membership over the past two decades.

The rate of change when it comes to the personal importance of religion in Americans’ lives reveals a similar partisan gap. Only 43 percent of Democrats today say religion is a very important part of their lives—a roughly 20 percentage point drop from the late 1990s (Figure 5). In 1998, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Democrats said religion was very personally important to them.

The drop in religious salience among Democrats stands in marked contrast to Republicans, whose views of religion have not changed over the past two decades. From 1998 to 2021, at least six in 10 Republicans have reported that religion is very important to them. Today, 65 percent of Republicans say that religion is very relevant in their lives.

The past 20 years have also witnessed growing religious diversity among the Democratic Party. Today, Democrats include a growing number of non-white Christians and people who belong to non-Christian religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Until recently, the Democratic and Republican parties were composed of a majority of white Christians.[xiv] In 1998, nearly six in 10 (57 percent) Democrats identified as white Christians, but, roughly 20 years later, white Christians account for only about one in three (31 percent) members of the party.

Hispanic Party Identification

Frank Newport at Gallup:

Hispanic party identification for the full year 2021 was 56% Democrats/Democratic leaners and 26% Republicans/Republican leaners. This represents a 30-point Democratic margin. The trend line since 2011 shows some fluctuation in this gap over time, but no indication of a major or sustained shift. The 30-point Democratic advantage in party identification among Hispanic adults in 2021 is, in fact, greater than the 26-point Democratic margin in 2011. If there has been any change worth noting, it has been the modest decrease in the percentage of Hispanic people who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party since 2011-2014.

Blue Inequality

 From The New York Times:

It’s easy to blame the other side. And for many Democrats, it’s obvious that Republicans are thwarting progress toward a more equal society. But what happens when Republicans aren’t standing in the way? In many states — including California, New York and Illinois — Democrats control all the levers of power. They run the government. They write the laws. And as we explore in the video above, they often aren’t living up to their values. In key respects, many blue states are actually doing worse than red states. It is in the blue states where affordable housing is often hardest to find, there are some of the most acute disparities in education funding and economic inequality is increasing most quickly. Instead of asking, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” Democrats need to spend more time pondering, “What’s the matter with California?”

Democrats and Idelogy

Lydia Saad at Gallup:

Whereas Republicans nationwide are highly unified in their ideological outlook, with most (75%) identifying as conservative, Democrats are more fragmented. According to Gallup data collected thus far in 2021, the largest subgroup of Democrats are those who describe their political views as liberal, at 51%. The other half are mostly self-described moderates (37%), along with a small group of conservatives (12%).

...

The percentage of Democrats identifying as politically liberal increased fairly steadily from 30% in 2001 to 50% in 2017. It has remained there since then, including today's 51%. As their numbers have expanded, liberals have edged out both moderates and conservatives. But moderates have been holding steady near 38% since 2013, while conservatives have become even more scarce.

...

The liberal wing of the party has had considerable momentum during this century. But despite its gains, it now represents half of all Democrats, with the other half still identifying as moderate or conservative. And while the party is now solidly liberal on social issues, it remains politically fragmented on economic issues.

Although having such a diverse political makeup has its challenges, that diversity could be helping the Democratic Party maintain its edge over Republicans in party affiliation. Even as the two parties are closely split when it comes to firm party identifiers, Democrats have held the significant edge in leaned party for most of the past two decades, including by 48% versus 42% so far this year.

Public Opinion and Progressives

 Ruy Teixeira notes problematic issues for progressive Democrats:

* Immigration. The surge at the border is real and Democrats currently lack a coherent immigration policy with a plausible enforcement regime. This makes them vulnerable to typecasting as being in favor of open borders.

* Police conduct. Support for reform is real but strong voices within the party are demanding much more than that. Defund the police and similar demands could re-emerge, particularly in the wake of a police killing that attracts wide attention.

* Crime and public safety. There has been a spike in violent crime and murders, which Democrats are reluctant to talk about. If it persists and Democrats are viewed as being complacent or ineffective in addressing the problem, the potential for working class backlash, and not just among whites, is very real.

* “Anti-racism” and “Anti-bias” training and education. The spread of training and curricular models that are highly ideological and counterposed to the views and values summarized above poses genuine problems. To the extent Democrats are viewed as promoting these models and making them standard within schools, workplaces and government offices, the party’s ability to occupy the center ground will be compromised.

* “Equity”-driven programs. So far, including in the American Rescue Plan, Democrats have been putting their chips down on universal programs and benefits, which disproportionately help blacks and Hispanics because they are disproportionately lower income. However, there is considerable pressure to promote “equity”, which has come to mean equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity. This has led to calls for racially-focused programs to eliminate outcome disparities, rather than relying on the provision of universal benefits and opportunities. To the extent Democrats becoming associated with equity in this sense, it also pushes them off the center ground.

Other possibilities could be mentioned, but these examples make clear the contours of the battles that could emerge and that the Democrats will likely not be able to avoid. If they wish to command the center ground of American politics, capitalizing on the strong economic hand they appear to currently hold, they will need to couple that with a conscious effort to steer back to the center on these cultural issues. If not, they will likely fall short of the progress that now seems within their grasp.

Support for a Third Party

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Americans' desire for a third party has ticked up since last fall and now sits at a high in Gallup's trend. Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults say the "parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed," an increase from 57% in September. Support for a third party has been elevated in recent years, including readings of 60% in 2013 and 2015 and 61% in 2017.

Meanwhile, 33% of Americans believe the two major political parties are doing an adequate job representing the public, the smallest percentage expressing this view apart from the 26% reading in October 2013.

The latest results are from a Jan. 21-Feb. 2 poll. The survey was conducted before recent news reports that dozens of government officials in prior Republican administrations were in discussions to form an anti-Donald Trump third political party.

The survey found Americans' favorable opinion of the Republican Party has declined to 37%, while 48% view the Democratic Party positively. The poll also shows 50% of U.S. adults identifying as political independents, the highest percentage Gallup has ever measured in a single poll.

Democrats and Police Unions

Alayna Treene and Dan Primack at Axios:

Democrats are in a political bind. They want police reform, but as advocates of public sector unions, they've also been trying to help police unions — which have been some of the biggest obstacles to police reform.

Driving the news: The politics of police unions have gotten so difficult that House Democrats are shelving a bill, first introduced in 2019, that would strengthen the ability of police to unionize, Axios has learned.

That was then: The bill, H.R. 1154, would enable all state and local public safety employees — including police — to collectively bargain for wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.

• It was introduced by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), with a group of 225 other co-sponsors.
• The vast majority of those co-sponsors were Democrats, including Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), who leads the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

This is now: Many of these same Democrats co-sponsored legislation introduced on Monday called the Justice in Policing Act, which has not yet been endorsed or opposed by major police unions.

• The bill would, among other things, limit qualified immunity for police officers, which makes it practically impossible to sue them successfully. A senior Democratic aide says this issue remains a sticking point for police unions, and the White House has called it a nonstarter.

Kildee's spokesman says that he is a "strong supporter" of the Justice in Policing Act, and that he has asked House Democratic leadership to not bring his earlier bill up for a vote in its current form because of "valid concerns with how H.R. 1154 could potentially contribute to acts of police brutality."

Very, Very Early Campaign Spots

From PBS:

"The Oldway and the New" is a 1912 campaign film put out by the Democratic National Committee on behalf of candidate Woodrow Wilson. The video portrays Republican challenger William Howard Taft as a tool of special interest and Wilson as a champion of working class citizens. Housed at the Library of Congress, it is the earliest known example of a political party or candidate using the medium of motion picture to communicate with voters.

In 1934, socialist author Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor of California. Conservative studio bosses sought to defeat him.  In 1988, Greg Mitchell wrote at American Heritage:

[Louis B.] Mayer and the movie establishment knew that to defeat Sinclair they would have to reach the masses beyond Hollywood with the message that he was a dangerous radical, and they would have to do it in a novel, exciting, and at the same time subtle way. Variety had issued a call: “With theatres available to provide Sinclair opposition, so far as propaganda is concerned, let the picture business assert itself.”

With only weeks remaining until the November election, an MGM director named Felix Feist, Jr., took a camera crew from Hearst Metrotone News (one of the leading newsreel companies of the day) up and down the state, filming interviews with prospective voters. Feist was following direct orders, it was later revealed, from MGM’s “boy wonder” producer Irving Thalberg. The raw film was processed through MGM’s lab, edited down to a few minutes, and added to the Metrotone newsreels, which were sent free of charge to theaters throughout California twice a week.

Louis B. Mayer and the movie establishment knew that to defeat Sinclair they would have to convey the message that he was a dangerous radical, and do it in a novel, exciting, yet subtle way.

Because newsreels had heretofore maintained a nonpartisan stance in election races, these shorts, based on an innocuous inquiring-reporter format, had an enormous effect. Well-dressed couples and prim, elderly ladies invariably endorsed Merriam. Disheveled, wild-eyed citizens with thick accents stood up for Sinclair. One man observed that Sinclair was “the author of the Russian government, and it worked out very well there, and it should do so here.”

Twitter Polarization

Aaron Smith and colleagues at Pew:

The political views and primary candidate preferences of Democrats on Twitter differ from those who are not on the platform, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in January.

The 29% of Democrats who use the platform are more liberal and less inclined to say the party should elect a candidate who seeks common ground with Republicans than are Democrats who are not on Twitter. They also express different preferences for who should be party’s 2020 nominee.

A 56% majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who use Twitter describe their political views as liberal or very liberal. This share is substantially larger than the 41% of non-Twitter Democrats who describe themselves in this way

Aversive Partisanship and Perceptions of the Parties

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization and aversive or negative partisanship.

From the Public Religion Research Institute:

A majority (53%) of Americans say the Democratic Party is trying to make capitalism work for average Americans, but 44% believe the party has been taken over by socialists. Eight in ten Democrats (83%) believe that their party is trying to make capitalism work, while eight in ten Republicans (82%) say the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists. Independents are divided: Half (50%) say the Democratic Party is attempting to make capitalism work and 46% say the party is run by socialists.

Half (50%) of Americans say the Republican Party is trying to protect the American way of life against outside threats, and almost half (48%) say the party has been taken over by racists. A strong majority (94%) of Republicans say the party wants to protect American traditions, compared to 49% of independents and only 17% of Democrats. Democrats overwhelmingly view the Republican Party as being controlled by racists (80%), a view shared by 48% of independents and only five percent of Republicans.

Partisan Gap on National Priorities

Bradley Jones at Pew:

Republicans and Democrats have long held differing views about policy solutions, but throughout most of the recent past there was rough partisan agreement about the set of issues that were the top priorities for the nation.

However, that is less and less the case. Republicans and Democrats have been moving further apart not just in their political values and approaches to addressing the issues facing the country, but also on the issues they identify as top priorities for the president and Congress to address.

While many issues are considered high priorities by majorities in both parties today, there is virtually no common ground in the priorities that rise to the top of the lists for Democrats and Republicans.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, health care costs, education, the environment, Medicare and assistance for poor and needy people top the list of priorities (all are named as top priorities by seven-in-ten or more Democrats). None of these is among the five leading top priorities for Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (Medicare and health care costs rank sixth and seventh, respectively).

Conversely, the two priorities named by more than seven-in-ten Republicans – terrorism and the economy – are cited by far smaller shares of Democrats.

The partisan gap is particularly wide for a handful of issues. For instance, two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic leaners identify global climate change as a top priority, while just 21% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the same. Similarly, although only 31% of Democrats say that strengthening the military should be a top priority, 65% of Republicans hold this view.

Electing a House Speaker

Matt Glassman at Legislative Procedure:

Traditionally, a norm has existed in both parties that all members support their party nominee when the vote goes to the House floor. That is, even if the vote in the caucus is 130-110, the 110 who did not vote for the nominee are expected to back them on the House floor. From 1947 until 1997, there was not a single defection from this norm. In recent years, however, a small number of members of both parties have defected from their party nominee. In 2011, 18 votes went to candidates other than the party nominees. In 2013, 14 votes did. In 2015, 28 did. In 2017, 5 did. In none of these cases did the votes comprise the balance of power such that they could deny the election to the majority party’s candidate. In several of the elections, however, a faction of conservative Republicans explicitly sought to use the floor vote to deny their party’s nominee the Speakership.

This time, a faction of Democrats is threatening not to support Nancy Pelosi.

Many observers believe that a commitment by Pelosi or other current leaders to step down in the near future might satisfy the insurgents; the current top Democratic leadership has been in place for 16 years, and there is definitely some general caucus dissatisfaction related to the inability of members to move up the leadership ladder. Alternatively, Pelosi might threaten to punish members who vote against her on the floor; rule 34 of the Democratic caucus binds members to vote for the nominee. When two members of the GOP leadership voted against Speaker Boehner in 2015, he immediately removed them from the Rules Committee.

If bargaining fails, Pelosi could call the insurgents’ bluff, and simply win the nomination in the caucus and go to the floor with it, daring them to deny her the Speakership. Similarly, she could lean on some of them to vote “present” on the floor, rather than for a different candidate. Under current House rules, nominees need a majority of those voting “for a person by name” to win the Speakership. If anyone votes “present,” the total number of votes is reduced by 1, meaning that for every 2 people who vote “present,” the threshold needed to win reduces by 1 vote. If Pelosi could convince 10 Democrat insurgents to vote “present,” she would only need 213 votes, which would neutralize the balance of power held by the holdout insurgents.

Tactically, Pelosi could also employ the help of Republicans, though relying on them to sustain her Speakership would be a dangerous (and highly unlikely) move. Republicans could outright vote for her for Speaker to make her majority, or they could vote “present” to reduce the majority threshold. They could also vote in favor of a resolution declaring that the Speakership be decided on a plurality basis; this broke the Speakership deadlocks in both 1849 and 1856. But again, all of these possibilities are highly unlikely.

Democrats Become More Liberal

Thomas B. Edsall at NYT:

Over the past 18 years, the Democratic electorate has moved steadily to the left, as liberals have displaced moderates. Self-identified liberals of all races and ethnicities now command a majority in the party, raising the possibility that views once confined mainly to the party elite have spread into the rank and file.

From 2001 to 2018, the share of Democratic voters who describe themselves as liberal has grown from 30 to 50 percent, according to data provided by Lydia Saad, a senior editor at the Gallup Poll.

The percentage of Democrats who say they are moderate has fallen from 44 to 35; the percentage of self-identified conservative Democrats has gone from 25 to 13 percent.

Well-educated whites, especially white women, are pushing the party decisively leftward. According to Gallup, the share of white Democrats calling themselves liberal on social issues has grown since 2001 from 39 to 61 percent. Because of this growth, white liberals are now roughly 40 percent of all Democratic voters.

GOP Identification Dips

Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Forty-four percent of U.S. adults identify as Democrats or are independents who lean to the Democratic Party, while 37% are Republican identifiers or leaners. Democrats have maintained an edge of between five and nine percentage points on this measure of party affiliation throughout 2017, after holding a narrow advantage in late 2016.

The latest figures, from Gallup Daily tracking interviewing throughout November, are based on interviews with more than 14,000 U.S. adults.

Democrats' edge has expanded this year mainly because of a decline in Republican affiliation. A year ago, 44% of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, the same percentage as now. However, Republican identification and leaning is five points lower than it was a year ago. More Americans now say they are nonleaning independents (14%) or do not have an opinion (5%) than did so in November 2016 (10% and 4%, respectively).

Note that this pattern can artificially prop up Trump approval rating among Rs https://t.co/oPcrY2J9WU https://t.co/N2DnSus8m2

— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) December 4, 2017

Political Potpourri

DNC

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez defeated Rep. Keith Ellison for DNC chair.  At the Washington Post, David Weigel writes:

Perez saw an opening to run in December because, after a month as a declared candidate, Ellison was seen to have just one-sixth of the DNC behind him. But as state parties elected new members this year, Ellison's numbers ticked up. It happened most dramatically in Kansas, where, on the day of the DNC vote, two new pro-Ellison members were winning office and trying to get proxy votes for him back in Atlanta.

In 2016, Sanders won the support of just 39 of the DNC's 447 voting members — all of whom, infamously, were superdelegates to the party's convention. Nine months after Sanders's defeat, Ellison won the votes of 200 DNC members. Some, like the AFT's Randi Weingarten, had been Clinton supporters, but plenty had been brought into the party by Sanders. Ellison's defeat, ironically, meant that tens or hundreds of thousands of activists who might have joined the party were now wringing their hands instead. But in states where Sanders performed strongly in 2016, just as many activists were already in the middle of a takeover. It just didn't happen in time for Ellison.

Budget

Brian Bennett reports at The Los Angeles Times:

President Trump is proposing a massive increase in defense spending of $54 billion while cutting domestic spending and foreign aid by the same amount, the White House said Monday.

Trump's spending blueprint previewed a major address that he will give Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, laying out his vision for what he called a "public safety and national security budget" with a nearly 10% increase in defense spending.

Though Americans think that foreign aid accounts for   Foreign aid consists of budget subfunctions 151 (international development and humanitarian assistance) and 152 (international security assistance).  In fiscal 2017, these two items accounted for $40.7 billion in outlays.  In absolute dollars, that is a lot of money  -- but only about 1 percent of total federal spending ($4.1 trillion). Most people vastly overestimate foreign aid spending.

Media

At The New York Daily News, Cameron Joseph reported on Friday:

The White House ramped up its war against the press Friday, barring multiple outlets including the Daily News from asking questions of press secretary Sean Spicer.

The move came just hours after President Trump promised to "do something" about the "fake news" during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference — and after Spicer angrily scolded reporters Friday morning for recent coverage of the FBI's reported investigation of ties between Russia and Trump's team.

It seemed to be a calculated decision, possibly aimed at getting reporters to focus on inside-the-Beltway stories about the White House blocking access and playing games rather than bigger stories on what major actions the Trump administration is doing.