Voters Don't Like The Amount Of Influence Musk Has On Trump

 

The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between February 16th and 18th of a nationwide sample of 1,451 registered voters, with a 3.2 point margin of error.

Emma, Jaclyn, Cameron, Alex, And David

Time Magazine has published its list of the 100 most influential people in 2018, and making that list this year are five students from Parkland Florida (Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, Alex Wind). One of my favorite people wrote the article for their inclusion on the list.

Barack Obama writes:

America’s response to mass shootings has long followed a predictable pattern. We mourn. Offer thoughts and prayers. Speculate about the motives. And then—even as no developed country endures a homicide rate like ours, a difference explained largely by pervasive accessibility to guns; even as the majority of gun owners support commonsense reforms—the political debate spirals into acrimony and paralysis.

This time, something different is happening. This time, our children are calling us to account.

The Parkland, Fla., students don’t have the kind of lobbyists or big budgets for attack ads that their opponents do. Most of them can’t even vote yet.

But they have the power so often inherent in youth: to see the world anew; to reject the old constraints, outdated conventions and cowardice too often dressed up as wisdom.

The power to insist that America can be better.

Seared by memories of seeing their friends murdered at a place they believed to be safe, these young leaders don’t intimidate easily. They see the NRA and its allies—whether mealymouthed politicians or mendacious commentators peddling conspiracy theories—as mere shills for those who make money selling weapons of war to whoever can pay. They’re as comfortable speaking truth to power as they are dismissive of platitudes and punditry. And they live to mobilize their peers.

Already, they’ve had some success persuading statehouses and some of the biggest gun retailers to change. Now it gets harder. A Republican Congress remains unmoved. NRA scare tactics still sway much of the country. Progress will be slow and frustrating.

But by bearing witness to carnage, by asking tough questions and demanding real answers, the Parkland students are shaking us out of our complacency. The NRA’s favored candidates are starting to fear they might lose. Law-abiding gun owners are starting to speak out. As these young leaders make common cause with African Americans and Latinos—the disproportionate victims of gun violence—and reach voting age, the possibilities of meaningful change will steadily grow.

Our history is defined by the youthful push to make America more just, more compassionate, more equal under the law. This generation—of Parkland, of Dreamers, of Black Lives Matter—embraces that duty. If they make their elders uncomfortable, that’s how it should be. Our kids now show us what we’ve told them America is all about, even if we haven’t always believed it ourselves: that our future isn’t written for us, but by us.

The Influence Of Religion Is Waning In The U.S.

Although people have been celebrating a solstice season holiday long before any of the modern religions were invented, many people still consider this day to be a religious holiday. Because of that, I thought this would be a good time to show what is happening to religion in the United States.

The charts above were compiled by the Gallup Poll from information they received during their polling in 2016. It gives a pretty clear picture of religion in the United States.

Note that only 56% say they are members of a church, synagogue, or mosque -- down from 76% in the late 1940's. Only 38% have attended a religious service in the last seven days -- down from 49% in the late 1950's. About 53% say religion is important in their lives -- down from 70% in the 1960's. And 75% say religion is losing its influence over American life -- up from 14% in the 1950's.

The United States was created as a secular nation by our Founding Fathers -- and that secularism is becoming more real with each passing decade.

Voters Don't Believe They Have An Influence On Congress

The job approval numbers for Congress have been extremely low for a couple of years. The chart above helps to explain why. The people in the congressional districts don't believe their members of Congress listen to them when it comes to how they will vote. And the remarkable thing is that the perception is the same for members of both political parties, independents, and the public in general.

About 62%-67% believe congresspeople vote the way their major donors tell them to vote -- and 53%-59% also believe lobbyists have a huge influence on those in Congress. But only 14% believe those in Congress are influenced by the people in their own district.

In short, most people believe we live in a plutocracy rather than a democracy -- where Congress has been bought by the rich and powerful and their lobbyists. I would love to say they are wrong, but I'm not at all sure that would be true.

The rich, the corporations, and powerful special interests always seem to get what they want from Congress. But the people seldom do, even when polls show they overwhelmingly want something. Take for instance the 80% to 90% support for background checks on all gun sales -- or the huge support for protecting Social Security and Medicare, and the majority support for raising the minimum wage to a livable wage.

The people want those things to be done, but the Republican-controlled Congress won't listen.

The chart above was made from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between June 1st and 5th of a random national sample of 1,027 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.

Our Institutions Are Selling Out To "Big Money"

(The image above of money is from time.com.)

The following is a thought-provoking post from Robert Reich (pictured) on his own blog.

Not long ago I was asked to speak to a religious congregation about widening inequality. Shortly before I began, the head of thecongregation asked that I not advocate raising taxes on the wealthy.

He said he didn’t want to antagonize certain wealthycongregants on whose generosity the congregation depended.  

I had a similar exchange last year with the president of a small college who had invited me to give a lecture that his board of trustees would be attending. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t criticize Wall Street,” he said, explaining that several of the trustees were investment bankers.

It seems to be happening all over.

A non-profit group devoted to voting rights decides it won’t launch a campaign against big money in politics for fear of alienating wealthy donors.

A Washington think-tank releases a study on inequality that fails to mention the role big corporations and Wall Street have played in weakening the nation’s labor and antitrust laws, presumably because the think tank doesn’t want to antagonize its corporate and Wall Street donors.

A major university shapes research and courses around economic topics of interest to its biggest donors, notably avoiding any mention of the increasing power of large corporations and Wall Street on the economy. 

It’s bad enough big money is buying off politicians. It’s also buying off nonprofits that used to be sources of investigation, information, and social change, from criticizing big money. 

Other sources of funding are drying up. Research grants are waning. Funds for social services of churches and community groups are growing scarce. Legislatures are cutting back university funding. Appropriations for public television, the arts, museums, and libraries are being slashed.

So what are non-profits to do?

“There’s really no choice,” a university dean told me. “We’ve got to go where the money is.”

And more than at any time since the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, the money is now in the pockets of big corporations and the super wealthy.

So the presidents of universities, congregations, and think tanks, other nonprofits are now kissing wealthy posteriors as never before. 

But that money often comes with strings.

When Comcast, for example, finances a nonprofit like the International Center for Law and Economics, the Center supports Comcast’s proposed merger with Time Warner. 

When the Charles Koch Foundation pledges $1.5 million to Florida State University’s economics department, it stipulatesthat a Koch-appointed advisory committee will select professors and undertake annual evaluations. 

The Koch brothers now fund 350 programs at over 250 colleges and universities across America. You can bet that funding doesn’t underwrite research on inequality and environmental justice.

David Koch’s $23 million of donations to public television earned him positions on the boards of two prominent public-broadcasting stations. It also guaranteed that a documentary critical of the Kochs didn’t air.

As Ruby Lerner, president and founding director of Creative Capital, a grant making institution for the arts, told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, “self-censorship” practiced by public television … raises issues about what public television means. They are in the middle of so much funding pressure.”

David Koch has also donated tens of millions of dollars to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and sits on their boards.

A few weeks ago dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups asked that museums of science and natural history “cut all ties” with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions … they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” their statement said.

Even though gift agreements by universities, museums, and other nonprofits often bar donors from being involved in decisions about what’s investigated or shown, such institutions don’t want to bite hands that feed them.

This isn’t a matter of ideology. Wealthy progressives can exert as much quiet influence over the agendas of nonprofits as wealthy conservatives.

It’s a matter of big money influencing what should and should not be investigated, revealed, and discussed – especially when it comes to the tightening nexus between concentrated wealth and political power, and how that power further enhances great wealth.

Philanthropy is noble. But when it’s mostly in the hands of a few super-rich and giant corporations, and is the only game available, it can easily be abused.

Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians.

But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring.