General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConsider this: an NBC/WSJ current poll on how people feel about Barr's "summary" has . . . .
. . . . only 29% thinking Trump is cleared.
40% do not.
31% are unsure.
To my mind this gives lie to the polls saying Trump has 40% approval/support. I dare say none of us find that believable. We've almost all felt his real base is below 30%.
While measuring other than support for him, I should think his supporters would all see Barr's letter as proof. I still do. I think this poll demonstrates Trumps real level of support.
Twenty
Nine
Percent
world wide wally
(21,762 posts)Would you let Trump babysit your child?
Yonnie3
(17,521 posts)would you buy a used car from this man
world wide wally
(21,762 posts)Horse with no Name
(33,959 posts)I think most would decline the offer.
world wide wally
(21,762 posts)uponit7771
(90,378 posts)Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)A number of them probably think he is guilty, and don't care.
Poiuyt
(18,135 posts)But more will vote for him. Some people will vote for the Republican candidate no matter what. I still expect a close race with a Democratic win.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)ProfessorGAC
(65,466 posts)They've got a decent gig, 401k is OK, and then there's the whole fetus thing.
Might not trust PINO but, can't vote Dem, or are fine with business status quo.
Stinky The Clown
(67,849 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2019, 08:15 AM - Edit history (1)
Our hopes lie in continuation of the changes the midterms revealed. "By far most" isn't all, and there is that vast pool of previous nonvoters.
Here's a very illuminating 538 article from last June about growth of our national bipolar political mega-identities, negative partisanship, and how people in each party view each other.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-are-wrong-about-republicans-republicans-are-wrong-about-democrats/
Blacks made up about a quarter of the Democratic Party, but Republicans estimated the share at 46 percent. Republicans thought 38 percent of Democrats were gay, lesbian or bisexual, while the actual number was about 6 percent. Democrats estimated that 44 percent of Republicans make more than $250,000 a year. The actual share was 2 percent. People also overstated the numbers of these stereotypical groups within their own party... ...
Lilliana Mason, a political scientist ... argues that partisan identity (Democrat or Republican) has become a mega-identity because it increasingly combines a number of different identities.
A single vote can now indicate a persons partisan preference as well as his or her religion, race, ethnicity, gender, neighborhood and favorite grocery store. This is no longer a single social identity. Partisanship can now be thought of as a mega-identity, with all of the psychological and behavioral magnifications that implies.
And which party people belong to is important because there is some evidence that instead of people choosing their party affiliation based on their political views (and changing parties if their views are no longer represented by that party), they shift their views to align with their party identity. The clearest case of this might be polls showing Republicans with more favorable views of Russia and Vladimir Putin after the 2016 election. But you can also see people molding their political opinions to their party on other issues. Opinions of the FBI, for example. Or, perhaps, the half of Republicans who have told pollsters that they support separating children from their parents at the border.
The danger of mega-partisan identity is that it encourages citizens to care more about partisan victory than about real policy outcomes, Mason told me. We find ways to justify almost any governmental policy as long as it is the policy of our own team. What is best for America, Americans or even small children is secondary to whether our partys team gets what it demanded.
"Democrats estimated that 44 percent of Republicans make more than $250,000 a year. The actual share was 2 percent." !? Right there you can see Republicans don't exactly have a lock on not thinking. But we know that a majority of conservatives have been liberalizing culturally even as the party determined to drag our whole nation over to Ozzie and Harriet's neighborhood to live. And that scary 50% of Republicans who support separating families? 50% do not in spite of their mega-identity.
But the biggest change might come from just developing the understanding of each other that we desperately need. Liberalism has become equated with tendency toward fascism (fascism is archconservative for god's sake!!) and of course with socialism, when liberalism is actually the ideological and existential foundation of the America they want to preserve.
This article doesn't even mention what percentage of Democrats Republicans think are Hispanic, and even without them Republicans see Democrats as over 3/4 LGBTQ and black??!! Btw, Pew puts white and indigenous Hispanics together, subtracting white Hispanics from its "white" category. About 76% of Americans are white, and only slightly less a percentage are Democrats, very proportional.
Not all Republicans are raging bigots, white or any other color, but we're talking about identity here, and how are they supposed to identify with a party they see as strongly dominated by a pair of interest groups portrayed as intensely focused only on what their identities want and need? And then there's all that noise from the far left, portrayed as insurgent socialists and/or fascists. I'd like to see a figure on what percentage many Republicans imagine they represent, very significant instead of very small, for sure.
Just imagine what it could mean if all America just had a somewhat better idea of who we really are.
Itm, Russia and China are already working to keep the Republican leadership in power and us out, knowing Trump will pass eventually. But note the only part of this that is about Trump is the Republican mega-identity's support of their current party leader's actions. By far most Republicans will support Pence or whoever becomes the next Republican president as well.