Approximately 10.8 million people live in Georgia, a Southeastern state in the (dis)United States. Approximately 60% of those 10.8 million, or 6.5 million, are over 30, the age at which one can serve as a U.S senator. Approximately 55% of people in Georgia are Republicans. That means the Republican Party chose Herschel Walker from among 3.6 million Republicans age 30+.
The title of Steve Coll’s New Yorker piece.
“Typically, the best way to understand Trump’s actions is to ask what’s in it for him. Four more years in the White House would extend his immunity from New York prosecutors conducting active investigations into possible criminal activity, ease pressure from bank creditors, and further enrich his family businesses: a win-win-win. Assuming that the President fails to rig a second term, he is fashioning a story about how corrupt Democrats foiled his reëlection, which might galvanize followers and donors after he leaves office. According to the Post, the President told advisers last week, ‘I’m just going to run in 2024. I’m just going to run again.’ His campaign has formed a political-action committee, called Save America, which appears designed as a means for him to raise money to influence the Republican Party after his Presidency ends. The pac is eligible to receive funds now for Trump’s ‘election defense,’ but much of that money would likely be spent on other causes and candidates. Leave it to Trump to manufacture a constitutional crisis that also incorporates a fund-raising con.”
Plausible, but ultimately, just speculation. Why should anyone believe Coll has inside knowledge of Trump’s mindset? I suspect Trump’s mania is largely unexplainable.
Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker
“On Thursday morning, when Governor Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, said on CNN, ‘Joe Biden is the President-elect,’ it was treated as breaking news. Merely acknowledging basic math, it seems, is now considered an act of political courage. More foreign leaders have so far acknowledged the outcome of the American election than Republican Party officials.”
From Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back.
The sentence:
“A majority (57 percent) of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers.”
The paragraph:
“Why does it matter if millennials’ rupture with religion turns out to be permanent? For one thing, religious involvement is associated with a wide variety of positive social outcomes like increased interpersonal trust and civic engagement that are hard to reproduce in other ways. And this trend has obvious political implications. As we wrote a few months ago, whether people are religious is increasingly tied to — and even driven by — their political identities. For years, the Christian conservative movement has warned about a tide of rising secularism, but research has suggested that the strong association between religion and the Republican Party may actually be fueling this divide. And if even more Democrats lose their faith, that will only exacerbate the acrimonious rift between secular liberals and religious conservatives.”
Millennial sightings at our church are kinda like the aurora borealis. Find yourself a dark, clear night from late August to early April and wait patiently. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll happen upon one. But unlike the aurora borealis, it’s probably best not to stare.
Young voters keep moving to the left on social issues, Republicans included.
“’This should be an alert to the Republican Party as they think about generational replacement,’ said Elizabeth Bennion, a professor of political science at Indiana University South Bend.
Each succeeding generation of Americans tends to be more progressive than those that came before, Ms. Bennion noted, a trend that potentially poses a long-term threat to the Republican Party’s power.”
One caveat. That more young people vote.
Effective leaders mix humility, kindness, and composure, in what may be thought of quite simply, as “human decency”.
Most Republican primary voters do not share my view. The one candidate displaying the most decency is in last place. And it appears as if most Democratic primary voters do not share my opinion either. The Democratic candidate exhibiting the most humility, kindness, and composure is losing that race too.
I can’t help but conclude, I’m an idiot.
I also believe life in the United States has improved over the last seven years—fewer people are destitute around the world, GLBT citizens are enjoying new civil rights, more people are working and have health insurance, our environmental ethic is stronger, we’re opting for diplomacy over conventional warfare, the stock market has more than doubled in value, and everything has worked out beautifully on Downton Abbey.
Most Republican primary voters do not share my view. Apparently, the frontrunner’s success is the result of deep-seated, widespread anger at the state of things. In their view, we don’t win anymore. Who cares about people in other places, traditional marriage and religious liberty are under constant attack, socialized medicine means worsening quality of care, and who cares about the stock market when there’s not any savings to invest. If only “W” could have had a third and fourth term.
My whacked out thinking is probably the result of my white, male, well-to-do privilege trifecta. In the interest of going along to get along, maybe I should get more angry, think more negatively, and support the most brash candidate possible, human decency be damned.
Pressing Pause 