Alienation, Religion, and the White Working Class

Emma Green writes at The Atlantic:

Back in October, PRRI and The Atlantic conducted a study of white, working-class voters—the Americans, it turned out, who were so important to Trump’s victory in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Unlike other pollsters, they defined “working class” as people without a college degree who are also paid by the hour or the job, meaning white-collar workers were excluded.

Compared to their white, college-educated peers, these working-class Americans were more likely not to attend religious services. Of the people in their late 30s and 40s, half said they seldom or never go, compared to less than a third of college-educated people in that age group. In general, white people under 35 are unlikely to be big church-goers:

Nearly half of both the working class and the college-educated said they rarely or never attend services. But young, highly educated white people still claim to be religious: Only 31 percent of this group said they’re not affiliated with any particular faith, while 43 percent of young, white working-class people said the same.

This matters for politics. “They’re going to be missing one of the major pipelines toward voting and civic participation,” said Robby Jones, the CEO of PRRI, in an interview. “Churches have served, for most of the nation’s life, as pipelines to all kinds of civic engagement—and not just because they hand out voter-registration cards or have them in the lobby. We actually see a link between all kinds of civic activity and church activity.”

This pattern shows up in PRRI’s research. White working-class Americans of all ages were much less likely than their college-educated peers to participate in sports teams, book clubs, or neighborhood associations—55 percent vs. 31 percent said they seldom or never participated in those kinds of activities. Especially for young white voters, “there’s a real question whether … there will be a lower civic participation rate over that cohort’s entire lifespan,” Jones said, including everything from voting in elections to being involved in community groups.

Banquo on Trump

Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

-- Macbeth, Act I, scene 3

Comey Calls BS on Trump

Michael E. Schmidt and Michael D. Shear:

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.

Mr. Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump’s truthfulness. The confrontation between the two is the most serious consequence of Mr. Trump’s weekend Twitter outburst, and it underscores the dangers of what the president and his aides have unleashed by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump’s young administration.

The English Patient, Continued

Emily Babay reports at The Philadelphia Inquirer:

President Trump has spoken frequently about his undergraduate success at Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania's top-notch business school.

But while claims of Trump's academic prowess at the Ivy League school have been around for decades, questions about how strong his record actually was continue to swirl.

The 1968 Wharton graduate's name does not appear in a report of dean's list students from that year or among students who graduated with honors, according to records from the university and its student newspaper.

Claims that Trump was a top student at Wharton appear to have first surfaced in 1973, when a New York Times profile reported that he graduated first in his class. No attribution was given for that statement. Another early Times profile, in 1976, also said he was first in his class, and the assertion has been repeated many times in the decades since.

Ever since the early days of the campaign, Trump has made many mistakes in grammar, spelling, diction, and punctuation.


 

Ryan on Transparency

In his coauthored 2010 book Young Guns, Paul Ryan wrote:

This new Washington Way isn't open debate broadcast on C-SPAN; it's closed-door, backroom deals. The Washington Way doesn't seek input from both sides of the issue; it muscles through bills on strict one-party votes. And the Washington Way isn't interested in honest up-or-down votes on transformational programs. It rigs the process to produce the outcome it desires through any means necessary. The ends justify the means. Bend the Constitution to keep up with the change.

...
The initial goal was to pass the bill before the August recess. But when that deadline wasn't met, tens of thousands of Americans got the opportunity to express their opposition to the bill when members went back to their districts for town hall meetings. Suddenly, news reports and YouTube were full of videos of angry citizens confronting often dazed the defensive members of Congress.  Immediately after that, the president and a small number of advisers and Democratic leaders retreated behind closed doors to write their health-care bill.  They didn't like what they were hearing from Americans, so they told us, in no uncertain terms to shut up and sit down. 

Robert Pear reports at The New York Times:

It was “find the Affordable Care Act replacement” day on Thursday as publicity-seeking Democrats — and one frustrated Republican — scampered through Capitol corridors, hunting for an elusive copy of a bill that Republican leaders have withheld from the public as they search for party unity.

Just a week before two powerful House committees plan to vote on the measure, opponents spent hours making the point that almost no one has actually seen legislation that would affect the lives and pocketbooks of millions of Americans.

“The Republicans have played hide-and-seek with us,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said party leaders were determined to plow ahead with repeal legislation, despite lingering disagreements among Republicans and outright opposition from Democrats.

Trumpism v. Conservatism

David Brooks on Trump's speech to Congress:

The first thing we learned was that Trumpism is an utter repudiation of modern conservatism. For the last 40 years, the Republican Party has been a coalition of three tendencies. On Tuesday, Trump rejected or ignored all of them.

There used to be Republican foreign policy hawks, people who believed that it was in America’s interest to serve as a global policeman, actively preserving a democratic world order. Trump explicitly repudiated this worldview, drawing instead a sharp distinction between what’s good for America and what’s good for the rest of the world.

There used to be social conservatives, who believed that the moral fabric of the country had been weakened by secularism and the breakdown of the family. On Tuesday, Trump acted as if this group didn’t exist. He didn’t mention a single social issue — abortion, religious liberty, marriage, anything.

 Finally, there used to be fiscal hawks who worried about the national debt. Trump demolished these people, too, vowing a long list of spending programs and preservation of entitlement programs.

...Trump’s speech on Tuesday offered those of us who want to replace him an occasion to ask the big question: How in the 21st century should government unleash initiative and dynamism while also preserving order? Trump’s answer: Nationalize intimidation but privatize compassion. Don’t look to government to offer a warm hand; look to it to confront your enemies with a hard fist.

Michael Gerson:

The Trump budget — which still exists only in its barest outlines — would increase defense spending by more than $50 billion, cut discretionary spending by a similar amount and leave entitlement programs alone. All of these elements represent the fulfillment of campaign pledges. But, taken together, they seem like the liberal caricature of a Republican budget: Cut poverty-fighting programs and international aid in order to fund more ships and tanks, but leave programs for the elderly (who disproportionately vote Republican) untouched.

...
The Trump budget outline is underdeveloped, compared with those of other presidencies; it leaves the trajectory of deficits unchanged; it imposes cruel and indiscriminate cuts in discretionary spending; it is cowardly, especially on the main drivers of future debt; it is injurious to elected Republicans who will risk the wrath of the Trump base in order to make rational budget choices; it is an indication of governing unseriousness and a preference for positioning over leadership.

But the speech was nice.

Mona Charen:

More than fiscal responsibility, conservatism is founded upon modesty about what government can achieve. As the Republicans rose to cheer “Every problem can be solved,” we saw that insight go out the window.

Russia Update

The Washington Post reports:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday he will recuse himself from any investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference.

Speaking at a hastily-called press conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he had met with department ethics officials soon after being sworn in last month to evaluate the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.

“They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment, and would thus recuse himself from any existing or future investigation involving Trump’s campaign.

The announcement comes a day after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and did not disclose that fact to Congress during his confirmation hearing.

The New York Times reports:

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence.

Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

HINT, HINT, HINT!

As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House officials grew convinced that the intelligence was damning and that they needed to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see it, even if people without security clearances could not. Some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators — including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to influence the election.

The New York Times also reports:

Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said.

But the extent and frequency of their contacts remains unclear, and the disclosure of the meeting at Trump Tower adds to the emerging picture of how the relationship between Mr. Trump’s incoming team and Moscow was evolving to include some of the president-elect’s most trusted advisers.

The White House has repeatedly sought to play down any connections with Mr. Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged this week that he had met twice with him during the campaign, despite previous denials.