It is such a contrast listening to Biden speak compared to Trump. On the one hand, itâs a relief. On the other hand, sometimes Biden sounds both naive and optimistic, after the last four years.
Can we ever go back?
The WSJ points out that in the Coronavirus recession, many out-of-work people are turning to GoFundMe pages in order to live:
â…more than $100 million for basic living expenses in tens of thousands of fundraisers on GoFundMe so far this year, the company said. That is up 150% from 2019 and more than any previous year. Last month, the company introduced a new category of fundraiser, for rent, food and monthly bills.â
This is happening as the Congress still diddles with a new stimulus package for Americans. A recent TransUnion survey showed that more than half of US consumers said the pandemic affected them financially. Some 38% said they couldnât pay their credit-card bills and 30% said they couldnât pay for their internet. On to cartoons.
House Republicans moved on Thursday to adjourn without voting for the stimulus:
Help is needed everywhere:
When you realize that it could be worse than you thought:
The Democrats are soul-searching about why they canât win the US rural vote. Many believe the Democrats underperformed in fly-over America, and theyâre asking (again) if rural America is lost to them forever.
According to the Economic Innovation Group, the rural Midwest counties Biden won had population growth that averaged 1.8% over the past 10 years, while counties Trump won saw an average population decline of 2.5%:
â…16 rural counties flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020…12 flipped from Clinton in 2016 to Trump in 2020.â
So, not much change. Over the past 50 years, the Midwest has seen out-migration, economic stagnation, young people leaving and small towns withering. They turned rightward and have largely stayed there. Is rural America worth fighting for?
Estimates of rural populations across the US suggest roughly 20% of Americans live in them. Rural areas are not exclusive to states that gave all their electors to Trump. New York and California have plenty of rural spaces and voters. Wrongoâs county in Democratic Connecticut is largely rural, and voted for Trump in 2016 and by a lower margin in 2020.
Yet, given the Electoral College, it is difficult to fashion a durable political majority if Democrats write off most of exurban and rural America. Letâs briefly look at Iowa and Wisconsin.
In Iowa, Trump won the state by 8.3 percentage points this year. GW Bush won in 2004 by 0.7 percentage points. He was the first GOP presidential candidate to carry Iowa in 20 years. Obama won with 54% in 2008 and 52% in 2012. Trump won with 51.7% in 2016, and with 53% in 2020.
Trump carried 93 rural counties, while Biden carried all six of Iowaâs urban counties. Republicans now represent all or parts of 97 of Iowaâs 99 counties.
Wisconsin flipped to blue by six-tenths of a percentage point. Biden won in 14 counties. From Martin Longman at Progress Pond:
âWisconsinâs Dunn County is in the central part of the state, over 96% white, and represented by Democrat Ron Kind in Congress. Not far from Eau Claire, the rural area voted for Barack Obama twice, but in 2016 Donald Trump won it with 52% to 41%, a 2,000-vote advantage over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, running against Joe Biden, Trump carried Dunn County 56-42, giving him a 3,300-vote edge.â
Bill Hogseth, the chair of the countyâs Democratic Party, wrote a piece for Politico Magazine, explaining that the national Democratic Party doesnât take rural issues seriously enough to get support from rural Wisconsinites. From Hogseth:
âFor Democrats to start telling a story that resonates, they need to show a willingness to fight for rural people, and not just by proposing a ârural planâ or showing up on a farm for a photo opâŠA big step forward for Democrats would be to champion antitrust enforcement and challenge the anticompetitive practices of the gigantic agribusiness firms that squeeze our communities. In his rural plan, Biden pledged to âstrengthen antitrust enforcement,â but the term doesnât appear until the 35th bullet point. For rural voters, antitrust enforcement is a top priority…â
Hogseth is talking about Democratic neglect. Elizabeth Warren made anti-trust and the breakup of big companiesâ part of her primary campaign. Thatâs good policy, and if it helps win some rural votes, even better.
Republicans arenât talking about anti-monopoly anywhere in America. A generous Farm Bill channeled money into rural areas and the Trump administrationâs trade relief payments to farmers have helped maintain rural Republican support. Hogseth says Democratic neglect leaves:
â…an opening for other stories to be told to fill the vacuumâstories that villainize and divide us along racial, geographic and partisan lines.â
People donât make decisions based solely on a rational analysis, or on self-interest. They donât believe in the Democratsâ promises to improve things, because Dems havenât delivered on them in the past 40 years. They need a villain to blame. Trump, and the GOP (and every other nationalist movement in history) gives them just that.
The center-left should be rejoicing, but their down-ballot results are a cause for concern. Today, Democrats are fighting about whether they should be more progressive, or remain moderate going forward.
One reason that Trump got 74+ million votes was because Democrats never mobilized the working class against him. Instead, they mobilized to win suburbia. That gave Biden the presidency, but it also keeps our enduring governmental gridlock in place.
Time to relax a bit on this December Saturday. Today, Connecticut is waiting on a snow storm that in typical norâeaster fashion, could dump 10+ inches, or miss us entirely.
Still, we have time to take a few minutes, turn away from our email, and listen to Harpist Silke Aichhorn play Tchaikovskyâs âWaltz of the Flowersâ from his Nutcracker Suite. It was written as a ballet in 1892, and has been enjoyed around the holidays ever since:
Turkey Pond, near Concord, NH – November 2020 photo by panasthropodism
The last time Congress passed a COVID relief bill was over seven months ago. This week, a bipartisan group of Senators revealed a new $908 billion stimulus proposal. This reflects a substantial cave-in by Democrats and House Speaker Pelosi, (D-CA) whose last offer was about $2.2 trillion.
Whether it goes forward depends on Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) finding agreement, and then getting Trump to sign off. Pelosi and McConnell talked on Thursday about how to find common ground on both a funding bill to keep the governmentâs doors open, and on another coronavirus relief package. Needless to say, they are still far apart.
Sept. 8: McConnell releases plan including $300/week in supplemental federal UI [unemployment insurance] for jobless Americans
Dec. 1: McConnell releases plan including $0/week in supplemental federal UI for jobless Americans https://t.co/GywLXGzOP9
According to the Century Foundation, 12 million people could see their Covid-related aid disappear the day after Christmas. This cliff is a major factor in pressuring Congress to pass a new bill before their 2020 recess. This funding need is separate from the need to fund the government past December 11. James Kwak of the Baseline Scenario says:
âOne of Congressâs top priorities this week and next is to pass some kind of funding bill that will keep the federal government operating past December 11.â
Kwak points out that there are two ways this could happen: First, Congress could pass a continuing resolution that maintains funding at current levels for a period of time, until after Biden is inaugurated, and a new Congress is seated.
Second, the Parties could agree to pass an omnibus fiscal year 2021 spending bill that funds the government through the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2021. This is Trumpâs preference.
This is a bit of inside baseball. Government funding measures are must-pass bills. No politician wants a government shutdown. Democrats have historically been able to pin most of the blame for a shutdown on Republicans, starting in 1995, when Bill Clinton successfully portrayed Newt Gingrich as a zealot who wanted to slash Medicare.
OTOH, an omnibus budget reconciliation bill could represent one of the Biden administrationâs few real chances to pass anything big through Congress. This is true since bills passed via the reconciliation process are not subject to the Senateâs filibuster.
Biden probably doesnât want to cede the omnibus bill win to Trump just as Trump is packing his bags.
But, if Dems linked the short-term funding bill to an omnibus budget reconciliation bill, theyâd only need a bare majority of Senators to pass both. The gamble would be that in order to avert a government shutdown, a scant few Republican moderates might be pressured to join in an omnibus budget deal.
Part of the Demâs reasoning for wanting to take only a short-term government funding deal is a bet that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock can both win in Georgia on January 5. Then, the Senate would be split 50/50, with VP Harris, as President of the Senate, in a position to cast the deciding vote(s) on the Democratâs agenda.
If both Georgia candidates win, Democrats will control both Houses of Congress for the first time since 2010, but by a razor-thin margin. They would need to insure that the one Senate Democrat in name only, Joe Manchin (D-WVA) would agree with whatever bills they put forward. Manchin will be in a position to control much of the Democratsâ political agenda.
Weâll see how all of this plays out in real-time, since the Senate is planning to head for home on December 18. Kwak says:
â…Democratic leadership in Congress seems inclined to give up the potential chance to write their own appropriations bill in January in exchange for a bill that they have to negotiate with McConnell and…Donald J. Trump.â
Congress might pass something that is an extension of the CARES Act, stranger things have happened. It’s likely it will pass a government funding extension before leaving for the holidays.
Itâs doubtful that Dems can go home without having passed something for Covid relief and some way to fund the government until at least late January.
The challenge of limited time and limited trust will test a divided Congressâs ability to make a few deals after months of gridlock.
âThe Gatesâ by Christo, Central Park, NYC â 2005. A series of 7,503 vinyl “gates” were installed along 23 miles of Central Park pathways. The exhibit ran for 15 days, from February 12, 2005 through February 27, 2005. Wrongo and Ms.Right saw it on February 13th 2005.
âAttorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.â
Nothing Barr says makes any difference to the Trump true believers. Many Trump supporters have been calling for investigations by the FBI and Justice Department, but the Justice Department wonât be going there.
It makes no difference to the lawyers trying to make a buck on Trumpâs quasi-legal actions. And there is quite a troop of legal monkeys like Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Lin Wood and Joe DiGenova. And some are spewing hate messages while reinforcing the Trump message of voter fraud. Here are two:
Lin Wood is a Georgia-based attorney best known for representing the wrongly accused bomber, Richard Jewell. He also apparently represents Donald Trump.
Joseph DiGenova, who is still helping Giuliani in challenging the 2020 presidential election results said this on a radio show about Chris Krebs, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who was fired by Trump after saying America held its âmost secure electionâ:
“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”
Wrongo is an advocate of free speech, but these people are fomenting assassination and a civil war, and should be stopped. Chris Krebs apparently is suing DiGenova.
But for Trump, the effort to destroy democracy is profitable. By pretending he didn’t lose, and has some legal avenues to remain in power, Trump gets to use the money he raises on pretty much whatever he wants. According to the NYT, so far, Trump has raised $170 million. The WaPo describes the funds-raising as using âa blizzard of misleading appeals about the electionâ. And Kurt Andersen tweets that:
âDonors on Mr. Trumpâs website are opted in with a prechecked box to make monthly contributions.â
But as of Monday, all of the key swing states that Trump has been contesting â Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada â all certified Bidenâs victory.
In other words, the 2020 election is over. Again.
But there also seems to be time for some hot elephant on elephant action: Republicans in Ohio have decided to try and impeach their Republican governor, Mike DeWine over his effort to contain the spread of Covid. DeWine imposed a three-week curfew from 10 pm to 5 am, and his fellow Republicans are outraged.
On Monday, Arizonaâs Republican governor Ducey held a short ceremony to certify Joe Bidenâs election win. He also certified the election of Democrat Mark Kelly to the US Senate. During the ceremony, Trump called on Duceyâs mobile phone, but he didnât pick it up; he kept speaking. Trump did not take that well. He called into an Arizona election hearing Rudy Giuliani was holding, and said to the audience:
âArizona will not forget what Ducey just did…â
You see, for Republicans, freedom isn’t free. My freedom costs yours. Democrats and other Leftists would be able to understand this, if only they loved America and freedom like Republicans do.
Republicans have been pushing extreme conspiracy theories at least since the 1950s with McCarthy and the John Birch Society. These are the same people whose fathers had “Jane Fonda Traitor Bitch” bumper stickers in the 80s and accused every liberal of being a communist. Itâs natural enough that after 70 years, they really believe them. The Trumpers do not understand how a candidate who could fill arenas could lose to a candidate who barely left home.
OTOH, if that poll is correct, millions of Trump voters are done with him. Maybe he runs. But it may be that the rest of the GOP are ready to turn to one of the younger, more promising Republican creeps in the Senate.
Did you realize that the Republicans have made it a long-term strategy to delegitimize the last four Democratic presidents? That includes Carter, Clinton, Obama and now, Biden.
What tactics the GOP will use against Biden probably havenât been fully fleshed out yet, but itâs still seven days until the Electoral Collegeâs âSafe Harborâ date; 13 days until Electoral College votes are cast; and 50 days until Joe Biden is inaugurated.
âIn near-identical tweets this week, GOP senators Tom Cotton (AK), Josh Hawley (MO) and Marco Rubio (FL) all came out pretty aggressively against Bidenâs Cabinet picks.â
The common thread of their tweets is a resistance to the educated, steeped-in-government expertise that Biden wants to shape his government with. Imagine the anti-elitists making that argument: Cotton graduated from Harvard undergraduate, and Harvard Law. Hawley graduated from Stanford, and Yale Law School. All three Senators voted for Trumpâs Cabinet, which was filled with people who also went to Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League schools. Trump also bragged about going to an Ivy League school.
Even Larry Hogan, Republican governor of Maryland, who told Trump to concede, saw fit on Monday to endorse the two Georgia Republican Senate candidates, Loeffler and Perdue. So even the better ones aren’t changing their spots.
And we still have the twin Republican stains on the country: Eleven months into the Covid mess, sourcing sufficient testing is still a struggle, and weâre still short on PPE. As Robert Reich said:
âLeave it to Trump and his Republican allies to spend more energy fighting non-existent voter fraud than containing a virus that has killed 244,000 Americans and counting.â
The cost of the Republicansâ misplaced attention is clear: While Covid-19 surges to record levels, thereâs still no national strategy for sourcing PPE or tests. Thereâs no national standard for stay-at-home orders, or mask mandates. Thereâs no funding for additional Covid relief.
Instead, the Republicans have led millions of Trump voters to believe the election was stolen. They will be a hostile force for years, supporting Trumpâs presidency-in-exile at least until the 2024 elections. Delegitimizing Biden will pull lots of money into Trumpâs newly formed PAC. It also allows Trump to keep himself at the center of media attention.
One thing this delegitimizing of Biden will do is keep the political gridlock going for another four years.
That will continue to enable the 40-year old Republican heist. According to a recent Rand study, if Americaâs distribution of income had remained the same as it was in the three decades after WWII, the bottom 90% of Americans would now be $47 trillion richer. More from Reich:
âThe upward redistribution of $47tn wasnât due to natural forces. It was contrived. As wealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even more wealth and shaft everyone else.â
Today, we live in the richest third world country on the planet. Since Covid hit, the rich got richer. The Treasury and the Fed bailed out big corporations but let small businesses go under. Since March, billionaire wealth has soared while most of America has become poorer.
By the end of this pandemic, Trumpâs legacy will have entered Pol Pot territory. He’s been ever-present, even while being a terrible president. There were no checks or balances. The GOP gave him everything he wanted, up to and including a theocratic SCOTUS.
Now we need to make sure weâll never have another authoritarian President. Weâll do that by cleaning out the political rot. It will be hard work, it means that we need to be citizens, not merely consumers. With the Conservatives trying to combine Church and State with big business, what must be done will be hugely difficult to accomplish.
Ruminate on the return of the darkness by listening to Disturbedâs cover of Simon and Garfunkelâs âSounds of Silenceâ. Perhaps the best cover song ever:
Listen carefully to the words, and you will understand the story of the decline of our values and our country.
Weâre back from our turkey-induced coma, but itâs hard to start a new week without our usual Sunday humor:
Yummy Thanksgiving pie:
Looking forward to the Inauguration:
This Thanksgiving, Biden thanked all the front line workers for all they have done. Trump thanked all of his lawyers.
Wrongo hadnât realized that Trump has now spent more than an entire year of his term on a Trump property (418 days), and 307 days playing golf. Imagine how much more damage he could have done if he wasnât so lazy.
Why is it so difficult for Americans to understand the threat to our society from Covid? From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)
A few long-reluctant Republican governors recently adopted statewide mask orders and stricter social distancing measures. But not all: For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), last Tuesday extended an executive order that bans city and county governments from enforcing mask ordinances or limits on restaurant capacity. South Dakotaâs governor Kristi Noem (R) is still resisting any kind of mask mandate. Nebraskaâs governor Pete Ricketts (R) again stated his opposition to mask mandates, while Nebraskaâs rural hospitals are nearly at capacity, as are bigger cities, like Lincoln.
White, rural American states are late to the pandemicâs deadly impact â partly due to how physically distant their residents are, by definition. But rural states have the smallest margin for error in terms of health care infrastructure. Their lack of ICU capacity combined with their relative inability to handle delivering the new vaccines when they become available, may see rural Trump-loving Americans take a much harder hit than they expected from Covid.
The exact criteria for who will be first in line wonât be defined until immediately after a vaccine is authorized. But the pressureâs on: The WSJreported that United Airlines is already flying doses of Pfizerâs vaccine to points around the country in order to be prepared for distribution, if Pfizer wins government approval.
Think about the enormous pressure there is on the FDA to approve use of these vaccines. That approval starts with a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). The FDA has scheduled a Committee meeting on Dec. 10 to discuss the request for emergency use authorization of Pfizerâs vaccine.
As of now, the FDA hasnât made the names of Committee membersâ public. But imagine if there are a few Committee members who disagree that the vaccine should be made available immediately.
This recently happened with an Alzheimerâs drug. The FDAâs review division reported that the drugâs effectiveness data was âextraordinarily persuasiveâ. Â But many on that drugâs Advisory Committee rejected the study, saying that the data showed the drug offered no significant improvement to patients.
Now, the FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its outside advisors, but it often does. So what happens if the Pfizer Committee has a split decision?
Finally, the Supreme Courtâs decision in a Covid case about whether or not a state official could close down places of worship in order to stop the spread of a deadly disease, seems out of step with where we are in America. They ruled that restrictions previously imposed on New York places of worship by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) during the coronavirus pandemic violated the First Amendment.
Thatâs a huge shift since Coney Barrett joined the court. In a similar case earlier this year, the court declined to lift pandemic restrictions in California and Nevada when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was alive.
But the longer term issue isnât the possible infringement of individual religious liberty. It’s how the American Right wants to expand it so that religious people can ignore just about any law they don’t like.
The problem with this decision is that it expands an individual right to a communal right. A religious person should be able to follow their faith, but once you start giving religious communities separate rights, youâve weakened the rule of law.
Your exercise of a right shouldn’t impose unreasonable burdens on others. But Conservatives want to treat religion as having a higher level of rights then othersâ individual rights, and this isn’t right.
Time to wake up America! The fault lines of our society have been exposed by Covid and the Republican response to it. To help you wake up, listen to a cover version of Bob Marleyâs âRedemption Songâ by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his siblings. He became an instant sensation after his cello performance at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Watch it, you won’t be dissapointed:
Some of us are thankful that the election is behind us. Weâre all thankful that 2020 is almost over, that a vaccine is on the way, and that the Dow is up. Weâre thankful that democracy has survived to fight another day. It has been a trying year.
Wrongo is thankful to all who read the Wrongologist. Weâve been at this same pop stand since 2011, and some of you have been with us the entire time. Special thanks to long haulers Monty B, Fred VK, David P, Pat M, and Terry Mck, among others.
Here are two facts about the 2020 presidential race that may have been overlooked: Dominating on social media was supposed to be all-important to winning the presidency this year. But Donald Trump has 15 million fewer votes than Twitter followers. While Joe Biden has 60 million more votes than Twitter followers.
Another crucial thing: The election of Democratic governors, lieutenant governors, attorneys-general and secretaries of state in 2018 in PA, MI and WI had a huge impact in deciding the 2020 election. They helped people vote, they fought frivolous lawsuits, and made sure that votes were counted and certified.
This is another reason why voting in state and local races is so important.
This Thanksgiving may not have as many people around the dinner table as usual. But it isnât the first time our Thanksgiving is shrouded in tragedy. When old people like Wrongo sat down to a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner in November, 1963, we were mourning the death of JFK. Twenty years before that, Wrongoâs parents were celebrating while a continent apart, while my mother was pregnant with me, during WWII.
We are truly thankful to those who came before us, and to our family members and friends who we canât be with today.
Weâre thankful to those who are today on the front lines in the military service, or at home in our hospitals, schools, firehouses, and police stations.
Faery Falls near Mt. Shasta CA â November 2020 photo by Gary German
(There will be zero to light posting for the rest of the week. We all need a break from the Turkey of an administration that weâve endured for the past four years, and this Turkey of a Year.)
The presidential transition is officially underway, nearly three weeks after the election. Despite all of our anxious uncertainty, with almost all the votes counted, itâs safe to say the Biden vs. Trump contest wasnât close. The Electoral College appears to be holding at: Biden 306 vs. Trump 232, a 57% to 43% win.
There are apparently still about 1.3 million votes to count, mostly in NY. Imagine the drama if NY was the state that winning the election hinged on â weâd all be too drunk to carve the turkey!
If we extrapolate the current margins to the votes that remain, it will look like this: The total Biden vote: 80.6 million; the total Trump vote: 74.4 million; the total minor party vote: 3 million, and the total national vote: 158 million. That means nationally, turnout was about 66%, up from 59% in 2016 and that Bidenâs popular vote margin will be 51% to 47%.
There was a more interesting margin of victory: Brookings Metro, part of the Brookings Institution, graphed the roughly 500 counties Biden won against the roughly 2,500 counties Trump won, comparing them by economic output. Here is their map of Americaâs voting, shown as a chart of relative economic output:
This is pictured as a typical Red vs. Blue breakdown, but itâs not about voting. Itâs about that portion of the US economy that voted for the two candidates. Seventy percent of America’s economy is generated in the 500 counties Biden won; the 2,500 counties won by Trump produce just 29%.
Back in 2016, Brookings found that the 2,584 counties Trump won generated 36% of the countryâs economic output, while the 472 counties won by Hillary Clinton were about 64% of the nationâs economy.
So there are two conclusions: First, the concentration of economic power has increased significantly in the past four years. Second, a real polarization in America is between its two economies.
Blue and Red Americas reflect two very different economies: The Blue one is oriented towards diverse, often college-educated workers in professional and digital services occupations, while the Red leans whiter, less-educated, and more dependent on âtraditionalâ industries, such as mining, manufacturing and farming.
From Brookings Metro: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)
â…notably, Biden flipped seven of the nationâs 100 highest-output counties, strengthening the link between these core economic hubs and the Democratic Party. More specifically, Biden flipped half of the 10 most economically significant counties [that] Trump won in 2016, including Phoenixâs Maricopa County; Dallas-Fort Worthâs Tarrant County; Jacksonville, Fla.âs Duval County; Morris County in New Jersey; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.âs Pinellas County.â
Still, Trumpâs winning of 74 million votes suggests that 47% of us continue to feel little connection to the nationâs core economic future. This may also help explain why Democrats lost all of the 27 toss-up races in the House and Senate.
If this pattern of one Party attempting to confront the social and economic challenges of a majority of Americans while the other Party stokes the hostility and indignation of a significant minority being left behind, weâll continue to have not just gridlock, but sustained harm for people and towns throughout America.
The Brookings map shows that wealth and power are not only concentrated, but that the concentration is continuing to grow.
If we fail to build an economy for all, itâs possible that at some point the inequality will reach an extreme. What plays out after that is anyone’s guess.
Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe, CA â November 2020 iPhone 7 photo by Julien21012101
Millennials joke about how Fox News did to their parents what the parents believed video games would do to their kids. Apparently, thatâs true: A new survey from PRRI (the Public Religion Research Institute) found that Fox News watching Republicans, the 40% of Republicans who trust Fox News as their primary source of television news, believe they are the most discriminated-against Americans.
The researchers broke Republican respondents into Fox News watchers, and non-Fox News watchers, and then compared their answers to those of all Americans.
Compared to the nation as a whole, Fox News watching Republicans are whiter (81% vs. 63% for all Americans), more likely to be male (57% vs. 48% of all Americans), and older (32% are over age 65 vs. 21% of all Americans). Fox News Republicans are more likely than all Americans to identify as white evangelical Protestants (36% vs. 13%), and more likely to say they attend religious services at least once a week (46% vs. 27%). Fox News watching Republicans are more likely than non-Fox News Republicans to identify as conservatives (77% vs. 59% of non-Fox News Republicans).
The truly stunning finding is whatâs said when both groups were asked if thereâs âa lot of discriminationâ against Christians and Whites:
Nearly 75% of the Fox-watchers feel Christians are discriminated against. They also think White people have it rough (58%), but only 36% say the same about Black people. Imagine how delusional you have to be to think White Christians have it worse than everybody else.
These people actively think the people who have the fewest hurdles to overcome in our society are at the greatest disadvantage. It seems safe to say their answers are mind-bendingly wrong.
Fox-watching Christians: Your religion is shared by between 70%-75% of Americans. Your churches are tax-exempt under federal law and are effectively subsidized by taxpayers. Somehow, despite these advantages many of you somehow see yourselves as the most oppressed group in America?
Is it even possible to be an OPPRESSED MAJORITY?
This view is held by some members of the religion that refuse to respect the constitutional separation of Church and State by claiming that your freedom to worship as you see fit is being crushed under the heel of godless secularism. Disliking those âwho would ban God from the public squareâ doesnât make what you are feeling persecution.
Fox News has supported Trump more strongly than any other news outlet. For decades, Fox has played a prominent role in shaping the Conservative policy agenda and supporting Republican partisan politics.
Over the last four years, Trump has used Fox as a personal platform, appearing on air hundreds of times during his presidency. Currently, the 15% of Americans who cite Fox News as their most trusted television news source, is roughly equal to the combined influence of NBC, ABC, and CBS (16%), and larger than that of local television news (12%), or CNN (11%).
Bidenâs aspiration is to try to heal the divisions in the US during his term in office. But, tens of millions of Republicans support Trump retaining power by any means necessary. With America possibly facing a coup, is Bidenâs hope even realistic?
Healing requires coming to a shared vision of the future. It requires some form of forgiveness and repentance by both sides for real and imagined insults. But, when we see exactly how much grievance and entitlement there is among these old, White Fox-watchers, it seems very doubtful that we can meet in the middle, understand each other, and change our behavior.
Itâs not gonna happen. Take a look at this chart from Media Matters:
This covers the period starting four days after the presidential election, until 14 days post-election. Itâs one thing to champion free speech, but this kind of prolonged propaganda attack will surely kill our democracy. If you doubt that take another look at how itâs Fox-watchers who believe that they are the most oppressed group in America.
Time to wake up America! How can reality be normalized when thereâs no effort to ditch the propaganda? And itâs not just the old White Foxers. Nearly 74 million people voted to keep Trump in office.
There are a few fine Republican governors out there. Vermont Governor Phil Scott is one. Earlier this week at a press conference, he spoke to the COVID skeptics, and to those who refuse to wear masks or follow Vermontâs social distancing mandates. Scott said that âthey can do what they wantâ, but added:
âDon’t call it patriotic. Don’t pretend it’s about freedom. Because real patriots serve and sacrifice for all, whether they agree with them or not. Patriots also stand up and fight when our nation’s health and security is threatened. And right now, our country and way of life is being attacked by this virus — not the protections we put in place.â
Scott was recently re-elected by a wide margin by the voters in his very blue state. Bravo!
Could a campaign work that characterized those mask refusers as cowards who won’t stand up and fight, who won’t serve and sacrifice for the good of the country? Would it change a few minds? Nothing else has: not science, not facts, not cajoling, not even mandates. Maybe trying shame is overdue. On to cartoons.
