Im-Politic: Latest Charlottesville Polls Suggest a U.S. Race Relations Muddle

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ABC News, CBS News, Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, Harris, Harvard University, Huffington Post, Im-Politic, Marist University, Mark Penn, Morning Consult, NPR, Politic, polls, race relations, The Hill, Trump, Washington Post, white nationalists, white supremacists

Keeping in mind how flawed they are, and keeping in mind that the wording of their questions matters a lot, several polls are now in (out?) on the intertwined issues of what to do about the nation’s various (and variegated!) Confederate monuments, and how Americans viewed President Trump’s response to the recent Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally, the counter-protests it attracted, and the violence that resulted – which of course produced the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer. The findings seem pretty clear, if somewhat challenging to explain: Most Americans don’t want the statues etc, removed from public spaces, but at the same time, most Americans disapproved of Mr. Trump’s response to the controversy – which included a defense of keeping the monuments in place.

Huffington Post, a news outlet I rarely cite, just performed a useful service by compiling the results of seven surveys on the Confederate monuments question conducted this month by six organizations. In five of the seven (including the NPR-Marist poll I wrote about last Friday), majorities backed keeping the monuments exactly where they are. In one of the outliers, this position was backed by a big plurality (49 percent).

The only survey showing a widespread desire for change found that by a wide 58 percent to 26 percent margin, respondents supported “relocating monuments honoring the Confederacy from government property and moving them to museums or other historic sites where they can be viewed in proper historical context.” Unless it’s assumed that “proper historical context” would portray the Confederate cause in an overall less-than-flattering light, even this arguably moderate viewpoint doesn’t exactly demonstrate that most Americans view its links to slavery and treason as especially troubling. Which of course I find especially troubling.

It’s possible to explain how these opinions dovetail with the negative reviews drawn by the president’s Charlottesville-related words and deeds, but it’s anything but easy, as I’ll elaborate on in a moment. But first the actual findings.

The earliest survey on the matter yielded results that could be seen as ambiguous. It was the NPR-Marist poll, and it showed that by 51 percent to 31 percent, the public viewed the Trump “response to the violence in Charlottesville” was “not strong enough” (as opposed to being “strong enough). This poll, remember, came out on August 17, and was only asking respondents about the president’s remarks as of Monday, August 14 and Tuesday, August 15 – before his late Tuesday afternoon press conference, when he made much more controversial comments. So it wasn’t entirely clear of whom Mr. Trump should have spoken more “strongly” – if any group or individual.

Subsequent polls, however, have made clear that most Americans believe that the racial issues as well as that Trump performance lay at the heart of their criticisms. The first clue came in a CBS News poll that was released on Thursday, the 17^th. According to the pollsters, a strong majority disapproved of “Trump’s response to Charlottesville” attack and that “Disapproval of the president’s handling of events rose [in interviews conducted] following the [Tuesday] press conference.” Indeed, those interviewed by CBS Tuesday and Wednesday frowned on Mr. Trump’s remarks by a 58 percent to 33 percent margin. The Monday interviewees disapproved by a 52 percent to 35 percent margin.

On August 21, the Washington Post reported that a poll it conducted with ABC News found that that Mr. Trump’s Charlottesville comments earned a failing grade from Americans by a two-to-one ration (56 percent versus 28 percent). And three days later, a survey conducted by Harvard University and the Harris polling firm found that 57 percent of respondents viewed the Trump remarks as a missed opportunity to bring the country together, and 57 percent believed he should do more to promote racial unity. (And in case you’re wondering, 59 percent agreed that the President should be doing more in this respect.)

Moreover a similar Harris finding – that the Trump comments did more to divide the country than to unite it – was supported by data both from the CBS News poll and a separate Politico/Morning Consult survey released on August 23). 

Nevertheless, these polls all presented results that raise important questions as to exactly how their Charlottesville-related views are or aren’t influencing Americans’ views on race relations above and beyond the Confederate monuments controversy.

For example, despite the stated desire both for better race relations and for a greater presidential effort to bring them about, and even though Mr. Trump’s comments on Charlottesville were broadly unpopular, most of the polling evidence shows agreement with the President’s view that both sides deserve equal blame for the violence in that city. (CBS’ was the only poll I found with contrasting results.) Those two sets of views don’t easily jibe with the great dissatisfaction expressed with Mr. Trump’s comments ostensibly because they weren’t racially sensitive enough.

Moreover, fully nine percent of Americans, according to the Post-ABC poll, said that it is “acceptable” to “hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views.” Another eight percent were undecided. (The NPR-Marist poll, held before the heated Trump press conference, found support for “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” groups at only half these levels.)

The best explanation I’ve found for these apparent inconsistencies comes from Mark Penn, a well known pollster who helps direct the Harvard-Harris operations. Penn centered on that Trump press conference and contended, “His arguing the point about the violence is a Pyrrhic victory as he still gets the blame for the polarization in the country. The voters are looking for a uniter and he is coming off as a divider.”

I fully agree that Mr. Trump’s big post-Charlottesville problem has been being too argumentative (on top of firing off inconsistent comments seemingly from day to day) and that most Americans want a unifier in the White House. Yet the polls and Penn’s observation leave me less convinced that a critical mass of the country agrees on what it wants this unifying message to be, especially when it comes to race issues.

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Im-Politic: Charlottesville & Trump: A Never-Ending Story?

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American South, anti-semitism, Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, free speech, hate groups, Im-Politic, neo-Nazis, racism, Trump, white supremacists

And so President Trump has stepped in it once again, and guaranteed that, unless something major changes, self-inflicted wounds will become the hallmarks of his presidency.

Of course, I’m talking about his impromptu remarks at yesterday’s press appearance, in which new, explicit denunciations of racist and anti-semitic hate groups were accompanied by descriptions of some of their individual members present in Charlottesville, Virginia as “very fine people” – along with comments that at least could reasonably be read as establishing a moral equivalence between the marchers and those who came to the region to protest their planned rally.

Among the least defensible:

>The contention that the torchlight marchers last Friday night included “people protesting very quietly the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee”;

>The charge that supporters of removing Confederate memorials are “changing culture” – which closely resembles the specious claim that the memorials were erected to honor the American South’s distinctive “heritage.”

As per the views I expressed on Saturday, I still don’t believe that Mr. Trump is a racist or an anti-semite. I still believe that his behavior mainly reflects a “pathetically mistaken” belief that a big chunk of his largely white, working class base will take offense at overly harsh attacks on bigoted, fringe figures like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

But upon reflection, I’d add that he’s stunningly inarticulate, and terminally – and in many ways childishly – argumentative. And although I’m not concerned that his verbal indiscipline will needlessly spark a war or some other kind of domestic or global crisis, those are worrisome traits in a figure whose every syllable is (understandably) put under a microscope. Nor is much simple common sense visible on the President’s part, or at least not often enough.

After all, how difficult would it have been to draw up sometime over the weekend and deliver on TV a statement along the lines of:

“My fellow Americans [or whatever standard presidential speech introductory wording you like]. I loathe the Charlottesville protesters and everything they represent. The neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and their ilk have deliberately associated themselves with historical atrocities and injustices that are not only appalling. They are uniquely evil in nature. It is indeed infuriating to see them openly displaying their perverse and destructive views in our streets and parks and squares. In fact, I am personally infuriated that they keep invoking my name, and portraying my efforts to reinvigorate the ideal of a practical, healthy nationalism as an endorsement of racism and anti-semitism and xenophobia.

“But we also must remember something crucial about our democratic values – which of course are values that the hate groups’ evil historical idols have tried to destroy. They demand that even loathsome figures and voices enjoy the freedom to exercise their Constitutional speech rights. So in that respect, attempts to disrupt their activities, or the First Amendment freedoms of other unpopular speakers, must be condemned, too.

“Therefore, law-breakers will be prosecuted – whatever their political views and associations.

“But much more important, I hope that the vast majority of Americans angered by the disgraceful Charlottesville marchers and their supporters understand, and take to heart, that the best way to counter, and defeat, the hatred they spew is not by joining them in the gutter and resorting to violence – unless it’s a matter of self-defense. The best way is to expose their sick lies with the power of reason. The best way is to remember our love, compassion, and respect for each other, and take every opportunity to show it. The best way is to strengthen our nation’s unity of spirit. And the best way is to fulfill our sacred duty each and every day to keep our great national experiment in self-government a beacon for all of humanity.”

Now the President is reaping the whirlwind. I have no idea whether this latest uproar will simply blow over (as with the Access Hollywood video episode), or become superseded by another headline news development, or will doom Mr. Trump to a single term, or will erode his political support so drastically that his presidency becomes impossible to continue. What does seem certain is that the prospects of a successful Trump presidency, and especially of promises kept to economically struggling middle class and working class Americans, have taken a body blow, and that something on the order of a dramatic display of executive competence, an equally dramatic display of contrition and/or explanatory eloquence – plus a tidal wave of dumb luck – will be needed for even a partial recovery.

Following Up: Republican Optimism on Trump and the Black Vote

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2016 elections, African Americans, Ben Schreckinger, Bernie Sanders, black clergy, blacks, Democrats, Donald Trump, Following Up, Frank Luntz, Hillary Clinton, Hispanics, illegal immigration, Immigration, Jobs, Politico, pollsters, racism, Republicans, voters, white supremacists

Big reasons for skepticism still abound, but I couldn’t help but noticing a piece on the Politico.com website today quoting Republican election strategists – and one genuine big shot by name – as claiming that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump could win enough African-American support in a general election to beat Democrat Hillary Clinton. This new article echoes a post I wrote last September, which focused on Trump’s possible appeal to a black population that has lost lots of jobs and job opportunities thanks to the political establishment’s love affair with mass immigration.

There could well be a big wishful-thinking component at work in the Politico piece. Indeed, who can forget how badly many Republican pollsters and consultants mis-judged the makeup of the electorate during the last presidential election and were stunned by Barack Obama’s victory by a very healthy electoral vote margin. And there’s no doubt that political prediction has been an especially hazardous business during this campaign.

At the same time, Politico has become a go-to source of elections-related information and analysis. So its decision to run this article indicates that lots of the powers-that-be in national politics take seriously the chance that Trump could lure significant numbers of black voters away from Clinton or her chief Democratic rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. At least, consider the evidence presented by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.

Most notably, he quotes leading Republican political guru Frank Luntz as claiming that if Trump won the GOP nomination, “he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980 [14 percent]. They listen to him. They find him fascinating, and in all the [focus] groups I have done, I have found Obama voters, they could’ve voted for Obama twice, but if they’re African-American they would consider Trump.”

Schreckinger quotes another pollster (anonymously) who has allegedly “tested Trump’s appeal to blacks and Hispanics and come to the same conclusion. ‘He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave….He’s not a white-bread socialite kind of guy.”

The author adds that “Already, Trump has been laying groundwork in the African-American community that could pay dividends in a general election. With the help of his political and business adviser Michael Cohen, Trump has spent years cultivating black faith leaders. Last year, he held meetings with black pastors in Georgia and at Trump Tower in New York. Trump’s team has also made a pair of black female video bloggers, Lynette ‘Diamond’ Hardaway and Rochelle ‘Silk’ Richardson, prominent surrogates online and on the trail.”

Further, some independent polls have found that a Trump candidacy would win a not-negligible share of the combined black and even Hispanic vote. Given Republicans’ poor recent performance with these groups, any substantial improvement could tip certain key states.

Of course, it would be a big mistake to overlook the obstacles to such Trump successes (other than the 800-pound gorilla in the room of Hispanics punishing Trump en masse for his strong opposition to illegal immigration and especially his deportation proposals – which I continue to think he’ll back away from in favor of curbs on employments and government benefits opportunities that will both produce significant ”self-deportation” and weaken America’s attraction to prospective newcomers).

After all, some of Trump’s outreach to African-American clergy hasn’t gone swimmingly. He’s also on record as having made several remarks widely considered racist. And the backing Trump has gotten from white supremacist groups, however unwanted, can’t help.

Nonetheless, so far during primary season, anyone betting against Trump has been a big loser. The general election of course won’t be exactly the same, or even close. But neither will it be 100 percent different.

Im-Politic: Roof and Terrorism, Take II

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Al Qaeda, Charleston shooting, Dylann Roof, Im-Politic, ISIS, racism, terrorism, white supremacists

Returning to the “Is Dylann Roof a Terrorist?” controversy:

First, I’m glad that my first offering spurred so much commentary and discussion – and nearly all of it civil. So thanks to all RealityChek readers.

Second, at the risk of over-simplifying some, it seems that those who disagree seem to be focused on the ideas that (1) any attack this savage and ideologically (i.e., racially) motivated must by definition be intended to terrorize and frighten and (2) that the violent white supremacist movement in America, and its global connections, are much bigger and more extensive than I recognize.

These are all valid points, but I believe that they are outweighed by the following considerations (some of which I’ve already addressed briefly either on Facebook or on Twitter):

> “Logically,” anyway, Charleston-style violence can just as easily be explained by simple race hatred, or by the desire for revenge, as by a wish to instill fear in victim populations or (presumably) their sympathizers. In fact, if you read Roof’s on-line “manifesto,” you’ll see how obsessed he was with the ideas that black murders of whites were being ignored while white on black incidents – like George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida – were supposedly filling the media instead; that all southern whites were being blamed for slavery even though only a minority were slave-owners; that school integration was exposing white students to black counterparts and their allegedly bigoted attitudes, etc.

It’s true that the manifesto speaks of “taking back” America from…what exactly is not clear, though it seems that he’s referring to the post-civil rights era, or even the post-emancipation era, and all of the legal equality and other forms of black progress they’ve fostered, however incompletely. At other places, Roof seems as if he’s talking about dramatically reducing the black population of either “the South” or of the nation as a whole. But there’s not much of a coherent agenda here, or any type of an agenda.

Although at one point, Roof writes that “It is far from being too late for America or Europe,” more of his rant focuses on how hopeless he believes the current situation to be.

In fact, here’s how he ends his polemic:  

“To take a saying from a film, ‘I see all this stuff going on, and I dont see anyone doing anything about it. And it pisses me off.’ To take a saying from my favorite film, ‘Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society.’

“I have no choice. I am not in a position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

It’s possible to interpret these words as a call to action. But in my view, they’re best read as a suicide note from someone determined to carry out a kind of racist kamikaze mission.

>Just as important, his complaint that his fellow white supremacists are simply “talking on the internet” at the least signals his own belief that the movement is not a force that threatens society in general, and certainly not one that’s willing to generate nearly enough violence to create significant nation-wide panic, much less move America any closer to its aims.

Of course, Roof’s words alone don’t prove the point. But let’s ask ourselves, starting with me and my fellow Jews (who probably wouldn’t be real well off in an America run by the Dylann Roofs): How many of you live in fear of attack or even any contact with members of white supremacist groups? I’ll ask the same question of black Americans and members of other minorities. And although I can’t genuinely put myself in their shoes, I’ll bet the vast majority would answer in the negative.

Do white supremacist groups exist? Of course? Do they communicate with each other? I’m sure they do. Are they growing in numbers? According to the Department of Homeland Security, yes. Nonetheless, this report specifically states that the agency’s intelligence bureau “has no specific information that domestic right wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence….” Further, a New York Times op-ed article today cited by one commenter, which claims that “attacks like the mass murder in Charleston” can no longer be viewed “as isolated hate crimes…unconnected to a broader movement” mentions no other such domestic incidents.

In other words, for all the claims to the contrary, the evidence that these individuals and even groups are capable of affecting the climate of public opinion, much less the rhythms of our daily and national lives, on any ongoing basis looks to be lacking. 

And in this crucial respect, unlike Al Qaeda and various Palestinian Arab groups, the IRA for decades starting in the 1960s, and the KKK earlier in American history, Dylann Roof and his white supremacist counterparts don’t qualify as terrorists. Because context – and its accurate assessment – matters vitally.

At the same time, Roof and his ilk are clearly dangers to society, and need to be monitored closely and neutralized as soon as criminal intentions become clear. In other words, they’re supporters and have been perpetrators of hate crimes – which are detestable and intolerable acts. But they don’t pose nearly the threat of genuine terrorists, and America’s law enforcement and security apparatus should set its priorities accordingly.

By the way, the more I think about ISIS, the more I’m leading toward classifying it as a hostile state rather than a terrorist group, although the jury may still be out. ISIS has been fomenting activity beyond its main base of operations in Syria and Iraq, but the aim seems to be overthrowing existing governments and replacing them with branches of the so-called Caliphate it’s started to carve out in the Fertile Crescent region. In this respect, the group may more closely resemble the Soviet Union and Maoist Communist China and their efforts to stoke global revolution, than Al Qaeda. Or perhaps the main difference between Al Qaeda and ISIS is the latter’s greater success lately at seizing and holding big chunks of territory.

In any event, the potential of each to consolidate a terrorist training base and record of attacking Western targets puts them doesn’t put genuine terrorists in a different moral category than Dylann Roof and his fellow haters.  But it does to date justify government putting them in a different – and lesser – operational category