The South Carolina Republican primary results present long-time observers of white evangelical Protestants’ political behavior with a conundrum. How did Donald Trump—a twice-divorced, casino-owning New Yorker who curses during campaign speeches and is prone to church-related gaffes such as accidentally putting cash into the communion plate—win in this southern state […] Read more »
Two Versions of America Emerge in the Presidential Campaign
The cultural and demographic gulf between the Republican and Democratic electoral coalitions can now be measured not just in space, but time. Today, the two parties represent not only different sections of the country, but also, in effect, different editions of the country. Along many key measures, the Republican coalition […] Read more »
Purity, Disgust and Donald Trump
… By setting a populist agenda that appeals to millions of Republicans and to substantial numbers of Democrats and independents as well, Trump has opened the door to a reshaping of the traditional two-party coalitions. As everything shifts and we question previously sacrosanct boundaries, Trump and his supporters embody conflicts […] Read more »
How Obama’s Gun-Control Move Reflects Major Cultural Shift Among Voters
… With Hillary Clinton immediately embracing it, and the leading Republican presidential contenders all quickly condemning it, Obama’s proposed executive action to expand background checks for gun sales is likely to widen the cultural chasm between the parties that defines the 2016 race. CONT. Ronald Brownstein, National Journal Recent polls: […] Read more »
The boost Republicans are getting from attacking ‘political correctness’
… White working-class men are enraged because they inhabit a world they don’t recognize. It’s a world with a black president, same-sex marriage, illegal immigration, empowered women, anti-police protests and radical Islam. They want the Old America back — when white men were in charge, gays stayed in the closet, […] Read more »
The troubling political implications of Americans’ sense of superiority
I’m right and you’re wrong. Such is, apparently, the view that Americans take regarding not only each other’s political orientations, but all sorts of other personal and existential questions, too. Americans think their fellow countrymen are lazy workers, bad parents and unhappy spouses and are generally unequipped to govern or […] Read more »