Thursday, July 05, 2018
Only A Tiny Minority Want Roe vs. Wade Overturned
Donald Trump has expressed his desire to overturn the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade (which guaranteed the right of women to control their own bodies regarding the decision to abort or not), and it now looks like he will have the ability to appoint a Supreme Court justice that will be the deciding vote in accomplishing that.
But if he does, he will not be acting in regard to the wishes of most Americans. As the charts above (from two new polls) show, only a tiny minority of 31% would be happy to see that decision overturned. About twice as many people (61% to 63%) do not want the decision overturned. They want the decision to have an abortion left between a woman and her doctor.
The Quinnipiac University Poll was done between June 27th and July 1st of a national sample of 1,020 voters, and has a margin of error of 3.7 points.
The NBC News SurveyMonkey Poll was done between June 27th and July 1st of a national sample of 2,652 adults, and has a 2.5 point margin of error.
The Great Negotiator Has Yet To Do A Single Deal For U.S.
During his campaign, Donald Trump claimed to be a great negotiator. He promised Americans that he would renegotiate an array of deals the United States had made, and get a much better deal for the United States.
To the horror of many Americans and people around the world, Trump has trashed several agreements (TPP, Paris Accords, Iran Agreement, etc.). Has he replaced those deals with something better? NO! In fact, Trump has not been able to negotiate a single deal. In dealmaking, he has been an utter failure.
Here is how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich puts it on his own blog:
Trump promised to be America’s dealmaker in chief, touting his “extraordinary” ability to negotiate. But so far – whether he’s dealing with foreign governments or with Congress – Trump has shown that he can’t make a deal. Here’s the list:
1. No deal with North Korea. Following his June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump declared on Twitter that “there is no longer a nuclear threat” from North Korea. But in fact, there’s no deal. Trump gave Kim what Kim wanted – a photo op showing an American president granting North Korea co-equal status, and the cancellation of joint military exercises with South Korea. Yet Kim conceded nothing on weapons and missile programs. In fact, recent satellite imagery shows the North is actually improving its nuclear capability. Instead of surrendering its nuclear stockpile, American intelligence officials say North Korea is considering ways to conceal it at secret production facilities. A new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize.
2. No deal on Nafta. Mexico and Canada insist they won’t budge.
3. No deal with China on trade. In November, Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping of China after a one-on-one meeting in Beijing, during which Xi offered no concrete concession on trade. Now, we’re on the brink of a trade war with China, which is retaliating against U.S. tariffs.
4. No deal on steel and aluminum imports. Europe has imposed retaliatory tariffs on several products exported from the U.S. to Europe, including motorcycles (inducing Harley-Davidson to announce it’s moving some production to Europe), and causing GM to claim American jobs will suffer as a result.
5. No deal on the Qatar blockade.
6. No deal on Syria.
7. No deal on Russia. Even though Trump and Putin will soon meet, Trump has given away his bargaining leverage: Over the past few weeks he’s called for Russia to be readmitted to the Group of 7 industrial powers, suggested it has a legitimate claim to Crimea because many Russian speakers live there, and continued to sow doubts about whether Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election — or if it did, whether the sabotage actually benefited Hillary Clinton.
8. No deal on Iran. On May 8, Trump announced America’s exit from Iran nuclear deal. Since then, no negotiations. America’s allies insist that no new deal will replace it.
9. No deal on climate change. Trump simply pulled out of the Paris accords. There have been no negotiations since.
10. No deal on Pacific trade. No new negotiations since Trump exited from the Pacific Trade pact.
11. No deal with Group of 7 leading economic powers. Instead, in a pique of irritation at Canada’s prime minister, Trump refused to sign a communiqué his own team had agreed to. Since then, nothing.
12. No deal on DACA or immigration. Early this year Trump promised to sign what he called a "bill of love" to extend protections to 800,000 immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children. But since then he has thrown in the towel on such protections.
13. No budget deal. Trump promised he wasn’t “going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” But in February he proposed cuttingSocial Security disability programs. And he proposed a 2019 budget that would slash spending on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, transportation and other essential government services, all while increasing the federal deficit. So far, no deal on any of this.
14. No deal on replacing the Affordable Care Act. Trump and the Republican Congress never agreed to a new plan, so Trump is quietly repealing the ACA administratively without a replacement. It’s estimated that at least 5 million people will lose coverage.
15. No deal on gun control. After the Parkland shooting, Trump promised to tighten background checks for gun buyers and said he’d consider raising the age for buying certain types of guns. On March 11, he abandoned his promise, bowing to the National Rifle Association and embracing its agenda to arm teachers.
Bottom line: Trump can’t make deals. He can only pull out of deals already made, or pretend he’s made deals that soon evaporate. He’s perfected the art of the no deal.
Wednesday, July 04, 2018
Half Of Americans Think Donald Trump Is A Racist
Is Donald Trump a racist? About half of Americans think so. About 49% say they believe he is a racist, while 47% say he is not. Men say he's not by a 16 point margin, while women say he is by a 17 point margin. Whites say he's not by a 14 point margin, and nonwhites say he is racist by much larger margins (77 points for Blacks and 36 points for Hispanics).
But racist or not, a significant majority (55%) say he has emboldened those who have racist views to express those views openly. And a larger 58% majority say he is doing more to divide the country than to unite it.
These charts reflect the results of a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between June 27th and July 1st of a national sample of 1,020 voters, with a 3.7 point margin of error.
Percentage Extremely Proud To Be American Below 50%
Today is the Fourth of July -- the day we celebrate the birth of our country. It's probably the most patriotic holiday that we have. That makes it particularly appropriate to show the results of this Gallup Poll. The poll was done between June 1st and 13th of a national sample of 1,520 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.
For the fish time in the 18 year history that Gallup has been polling on this question, the percentage of Americans who say they are extremely proud to be an American has dropped below 50%. Only 47% of Americans say that now (10 points below the number who said it in 2013). I think there's no doubt that's because of Donald Trump. A lot of people simply are embarrassed by Trump's policies (caging children, favoring the rich, demonizing our free press, attacking our FBI and intelligence agencies, lying incessantly, attacking our allies and coddling our enemies, etc.).
Note the second chart. It shows the difference between when the question was asked in 2013 (under Obama) and in 2018 (under Trump). 2013 is in blue and 2018 is in green. Only one group (Republicans) scored higher in 2018. Every other demographic group had a higher pride in this country in 2013.
Evidence Emerges That Trump Got Played By Kim
That's the tweet Trump published after his meeting with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. He claimed that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea, because Kim Jong-Un had agreed to give up his nuclear weapons. He repeated that claim to journalists in the days following the summit.
Unfortunately, his bold claims were premature. The agreement he signed with the North Korea leader was not a binding agreement for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, and provided for no kind of verification that they would do so. It was just a feel-good moment for both leaders that meant nothing.
Has North Korea taken steps to give up those weapons? Have they even stopped production of nuclear weapons and missiles? NO! In fact, they have done just the opposite. Our intelligence agencies have now verified that North Korea has taken steps to increase their ability to produce nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry those weapons.
Consider this from military.com:
U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea has been "deceiving" the U.S., saying the Hermit Kingdom was bolstering production for nuclear weapons at "multiple secret sites" in the past few months, a report stated.
Officials from the CIA and other intelligence agencies told NBC News the regime has increased its production of enriched uranium for the weapons despite the historic summit earlier this month between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump. Kim and Trump both signed a document on June 12 stating that Pyongyang would work toward "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.". . .
However, the officials believed North Korea was "positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration -- while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival."
And this from time.com:The Middlebury Institute of International Studies report found that North Korea has recently expanded a factory complex in the eastern city of Hamhung that produces key engines for solid-fuel ballistic missiles. The factory also makes other missile components, including re-entry vehicles for warheads that could be used on longer-range missiles capable of reaching the U.S.
“The expansion suggests that, despite hopes for denuclearization, Kim Jong Un is committed to increasing North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear-armed missiles,” the report’s authors David Schmerler and Jeffrey Lewis wrote.
Donald Trump got played by the North Korean leader. Kim just wanted his moment on the world stage, and Trump was dumb enough to give it to him. Nothing has changed about the North Korean nuclear threat.Americans didn't really believe Trump's bragging anyway. Only 24% of Americans said in a recent poll that they believed North Korea had agreed to give up nuclear weapons, and that included less than half of Republicans (49%). It seems that the U.S. public was smarter than Trump
The chart below is from the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 24th and 26th of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a margin of error of 3.1 points.
Nothing Can Stop U.S. From Becoming More Diverse
The current anti-immigration efforts by Trump and his Republican cohorts are a futile effort to stave off the demographic changes happening to the population in this country. They are afraid of an America where Whites are the minority, and White privilege no longer exists. But they can't stop it, no matter how hard they try. The change is happening, whether they like it or not.
The chart above shows the increase in diversity between 2016 and 2017 as noted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Here is what's happening -- as reported by Think Progress:
As the nation grows older, it’s also becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. “Nationally, the population of all race and ethnic groups, except for the non-Hispanic white alone group, grew between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017,” the Census statement said.
Specifically, the Census Bureau reported:
- The Hispanic population increased 2.1 percent to 58.9 million.
- The black or African-American population increased 1.2 percent to 47.4 million.
- The Asian population increased 3.1 percent to 22.2 million.
- The American Indian or Alaska Native population increased 1.3 percent to 6.8 million.
- The Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander population increased 2.1 percent to 1.6 million.
- The population of those Two or More Races increased 2.9 percent to 8.7 million.
- The white alone-or-in-combination population increased 0.5 percent to 257.4 million.
- The non-Hispanic white alone population decreased .02 percent to 197.8 million.
Of course, none of these revelations are particularly earth-shaking. Keen demographers and social scientists have been tracking the so-called “browning of America,” for years.
But in the current political environment, it bears repeating over and over, if for no other reason than to remind more Americans of the inevitability of change. Soon — within the lifetimes of the vast majority of Americans alive today — the U.S. will no longer be a white-majority nation.
And that’s why this column is directed to Trump’s MAGA crowd, which seems hell-bent on returning the country to some idealized era of the 1950s or earlier, when white men were the unquestioned arbiters and beneficiaries of the nation’s politics, culture, and economy.
Indeed, the hateful atmosphere brought about by Trumpism and echoed in archly right-wing media has its roots in a vocal white nationalist movement, which seized on the president’s embrace of their racist rhetoric as permission to openly act on impulses that previously were tucked away from public view. . . .
For all their bluster and bravado, however, white nationalists are whistling past their own graveyards. The numbers and unrelenting facts of demography stare in the face of those who believe they can restore some non-existant glory of white supremacy.
Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (PREE), estimates that by the year 2043 — about 25 years from now — the U.S. will reach the tipping point when the country transitions to a majority-minority population. Among working-class Americans — made up of working adults without a college degree — she estimates the tipping point may arrive nearly a decade sooner, possibly by 2032, . . .
The sooner most Americans come to terms with this reality, the sooner the public will rally support and encourage politicians to deal with the changing demographics from a position of national strength, and not as the fearsome dilution of white superiority. One thing is certain: the changes coming to America aren’t going to suddenly shift into reverse, no matter how loudly Trump, his subservient congressional leaders, and white nationalists complain.
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