Thursday, January 21, 2016 6:50:59 AM
Why 2016 Is Different From All Other Recent Elections
"Widening Income Inequality Bad For Economic Growth: IMF Repor"
David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt JAN. 19, 2016
The 2016 Republican primary began as many Republican presidential campaigns do, with a few unexpected names atop the polls. In recent cycles, the names have included Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Pat Buchanan. This year, they’ve been Donald Trump .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per , Ted Cruz .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ted-cruz-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .. and Ben Carson .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ben-carson-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .
What’s made 2016 different is that unexpected names have stayed atop the polls.
For the last five months, Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Carson have combined for more than 50 percent of Republican voters’ preferences in national polls. And just to review: Mr. Trump and Mr. Carson have never held elective office, while Mr. Cruz is loathed .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-shunned-in-the-senate-plays-unpopularity-to-his-advantage.html?_r=0 .. by .. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/09/ted_cruz_is_despised_by_senate_republicans_a_list_of_the_reasons_gop_senators.html .. many .. http://www.redstate.com/2015/12/02/ted-cruz-scores-huge-endorsement/ .. of his fellow Republican senators. All three regularly tell untruths .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html .. on the campaign trail.
IMAGE: National G.O.P. Polls Before Iowa
Eventual nominee appears in bold. Numbers show average of polls of Republicans in final weeks before Iowa caucus.
Source: Real Clear Politics and Polling Report
By contrast, the poll leaders in the final weeks before voting in the last three competitive Republican races — 2012, 2008 and 2000 — were mostly traditional politicians: Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in 2012; John McCain and Mike Huckabee in 2008; George W. Bush in 2000.
Related Coverage
The 2016 Race: Underestimating Cruz and Trump: A Post-Mortem
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/underestimating-cruz-and-trump-a-post-mortem.html
One way or another, 2016 will be different. Either the nominee will be more stylistically radical than any recent predecessor, or an establishment figure like Marco Rubio .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/marco-rubio-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .. will stage a much bigger comeback than any recent Republican nominee has.
Unloved by the party establishment: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Credit John Locher/Associated Press
Why has this happened? No doubt, there’s more than one answer. The surprising weakness of Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, once the front-runners, is part of it. Mr. Trump’s celebrity and his performance skills are also part of it, as is Mr. Cruz’s success .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/upshot/ted-cruz-has-a-chance-to-win-heres-the-path.html .. in winning over .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/politics/ted-cruz-starts-to-crack-gop-establishments-wall-of-opposition.html .. some conservative donors.
Yet the biggest cause, in my view, is the mind-set of the Republican electorate. It is angrier and more disenchanted than it has been in years. Pockets of such anger have long existed. Disenchanted conservatives helped Mr. Santorum win the Iowa caucus four years ago, for example, and Pat Buchanan win New Hampshire in 1996. Ultimately, though, a different group of conservative voters — comfortable with the Republican establishment — won out.
IMAGE: Angry at the Government
Share of self-identified Republicans who report being angry at the government in Washington.
Alternatives were “frustrated” and “basically content.”
Source: Pew Research Center
The establishment may yet prevail this year. Mr. Rubio and Chris Christie have been sparring so much lately because both are trying to emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire as the establishment alternative. One of them (or Mr. Bush, if he can somehow turn around his campaign) will still probably have a chance to consolidate the parts of the party turned off by Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump. If that effort succeeds, 2016 will end up looking less unusual than it now does.
Yet the alternative — that the Republican establishment will suffer its worst defeat in a presidential primary campaign since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 victory — is a real possibility. Few political analysts or journalists saw this coming .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/underestimating-cruz-and-trump-a-post-mortem.html?src=twr .
To understand what’s happened, I asked the analysts at the Pew Research Center .. http://www.pewresearch.org/ .. to dig into their long-running surveys on the country’s mood and break out the numbers just for self-identified Republicans. The numbers generally do not show sharp changes in the last few years. They do show an electorate that has become steadily more radicalized over the last decade.
The disenchantment began during the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, accelerated during the financial crisis and reached a new peak during President Obama’s highly active first term. By some measures, the unhappiness has remained at that peak; by other measures, it’s even higher today.
Consider this: When Pew asks people whether they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing, it offers three possible answers: just about always, most of the time, only some of the time. In the most recent survey, 18 percent of Republicans skipped all of those answers and volunteered “never.” That share was up from 8 percent who did so four years earlier.
Similarly, 33 percent of Republicans said they were angry at the federal government (as opposed to frustrated or basically content), up from 27 percent four years earlier. Only 12 percent of Republicans report being satisfied with the country’s direction — roughly unchanged since 2012 and compared with the 18 percent who gave that answer in October 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis. These patterns suggest that a candidate like Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz could have emerged in the 2012 cycle, but probably not earlier.
The roots of the anger have two broad causes: one economic, one cultural. The economic cause is the great 21st-century wage slowdown .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/upshot/the-great-wage-slowdown-of-the-21st-century.html . The typical family makes only marginally more money than it did in the year 2000, because of the financial crisis and disappointing wage growth on either side of the crisis. Historically, nothing breeds .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/upshot/the-great-wage-slowdown-looming-over-politics.html .. political frustration as reliably as economic stagnation.
For many Republican voters, this economic malaise is aggravated by cultural change. Same-sex marriage .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier .. is now the law of the land. The share of Americans identifying as Christian is dropping .. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ . Only about half of babies born last year were non-Hispanic whites — while about nine in 10 of Republicans .. http://www.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx .. are non-Hispanic whites. A liberal African-American has been elected president, twice.
To be clear, many Republicans are frustrated without being racially prejudiced. But there is abundant evidence .. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/23/donald-trump/trump-tweet-blacks-white-homicide-victims/ — from polls .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/24/its-not-just-donald-trump-half-of-republicans-shares-his-views-on-immigrants-and-refugees/ .. and analysis .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html .. of web behavior, for example — that racial attitudes play a significant role in today’s politics.
One especially telling explanation of the 2016 campaign comes from a Pew question about Republicans’ attitudes toward their own party. In more than two decades of Pew polling on the question, Republicans’ unhappiness with their party during the Obama presidency has exceeded any previous level of self-party dissatisfaction, among either Democrats or Republicans.
IMAGE: Republican Disaffection
Share of self-identified Republicans saying they are dissatisfied with the country’s direction.
Source: Pew Research Center
About half of Republicans have disapproved of their party’s congressional leaders in most polls since 2013. By comparison, only about 20 percent tended to disapprove during the Bush presidency.
No wonder, then, that candidates who sound so angry are doing so well this year. The actual start of voting — now just two weeks away — still has the potential to return a sense of historical normalcy to the campaign. But the Republican electorate is substantially different from the way it used to be, which means the result could be, too.
Correction: January 19, 2016
An earlier version of a chart with this article incorrectly left off Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two of the national polling leaders among Republicans
in the weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucuses. Mr. Giuliani led an average of polls, at 20 percent, and Mr. Romney was fourth at 14 percent.
The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our newsletter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/why-2016-is-different-from-all-other-recent-elections.html?rref=upshot
See also:
Tea Party Is ‘Bald-Faced Racists,’ White Privilege Conference Speaker Tells Sea Of White People
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111713501
Liberal Racism: 25 Things I Learned After I Wrote About ISIS
and White Racism at the Daily Kos .. by Chauncey Devega
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110660213
White Privilege, Quantified
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111735894
What whites don't know about racism
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=119418869
Tim Wise at his profound insightful best
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108740070
Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115622106
"Widening Income Inequality Bad For Economic Growth: IMF Repor"
David Leonhardt @DLeonhardt JAN. 19, 2016
The 2016 Republican primary began as many Republican presidential campaigns do, with a few unexpected names atop the polls. In recent cycles, the names have included Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Pat Buchanan. This year, they’ve been Donald Trump .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per , Ted Cruz .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ted-cruz-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .. and Ben Carson .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ben-carson-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .
What’s made 2016 different is that unexpected names have stayed atop the polls.
For the last five months, Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Carson have combined for more than 50 percent of Republican voters’ preferences in national polls. And just to review: Mr. Trump and Mr. Carson have never held elective office, while Mr. Cruz is loathed .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-shunned-in-the-senate-plays-unpopularity-to-his-advantage.html?_r=0 .. by .. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/09/ted_cruz_is_despised_by_senate_republicans_a_list_of_the_reasons_gop_senators.html .. many .. http://www.redstate.com/2015/12/02/ted-cruz-scores-huge-endorsement/ .. of his fellow Republican senators. All three regularly tell untruths .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html .. on the campaign trail.
IMAGE: National G.O.P. Polls Before Iowa
Eventual nominee appears in bold. Numbers show average of polls of Republicans in final weeks before Iowa caucus.
Source: Real Clear Politics and Polling Report
By contrast, the poll leaders in the final weeks before voting in the last three competitive Republican races — 2012, 2008 and 2000 — were mostly traditional politicians: Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in 2012; John McCain and Mike Huckabee in 2008; George W. Bush in 2000.
Related Coverage
The 2016 Race: Underestimating Cruz and Trump: A Post-Mortem
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/underestimating-cruz-and-trump-a-post-mortem.html
One way or another, 2016 will be different. Either the nominee will be more stylistically radical than any recent predecessor, or an establishment figure like Marco Rubio .. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/marco-rubio-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per .. will stage a much bigger comeback than any recent Republican nominee has.
Unloved by the party establishment: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Credit John Locher/Associated Press
Why has this happened? No doubt, there’s more than one answer. The surprising weakness of Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, once the front-runners, is part of it. Mr. Trump’s celebrity and his performance skills are also part of it, as is Mr. Cruz’s success .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/upshot/ted-cruz-has-a-chance-to-win-heres-the-path.html .. in winning over .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/politics/ted-cruz-starts-to-crack-gop-establishments-wall-of-opposition.html .. some conservative donors.
Yet the biggest cause, in my view, is the mind-set of the Republican electorate. It is angrier and more disenchanted than it has been in years. Pockets of such anger have long existed. Disenchanted conservatives helped Mr. Santorum win the Iowa caucus four years ago, for example, and Pat Buchanan win New Hampshire in 1996. Ultimately, though, a different group of conservative voters — comfortable with the Republican establishment — won out.
IMAGE: Angry at the Government
Share of self-identified Republicans who report being angry at the government in Washington.
Alternatives were “frustrated” and “basically content.”
Source: Pew Research Center
The establishment may yet prevail this year. Mr. Rubio and Chris Christie have been sparring so much lately because both are trying to emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire as the establishment alternative. One of them (or Mr. Bush, if he can somehow turn around his campaign) will still probably have a chance to consolidate the parts of the party turned off by Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump. If that effort succeeds, 2016 will end up looking less unusual than it now does.
Yet the alternative — that the Republican establishment will suffer its worst defeat in a presidential primary campaign since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 victory — is a real possibility. Few political analysts or journalists saw this coming .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/underestimating-cruz-and-trump-a-post-mortem.html?src=twr .
To understand what’s happened, I asked the analysts at the Pew Research Center .. http://www.pewresearch.org/ .. to dig into their long-running surveys on the country’s mood and break out the numbers just for self-identified Republicans. The numbers generally do not show sharp changes in the last few years. They do show an electorate that has become steadily more radicalized over the last decade.
The disenchantment began during the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, accelerated during the financial crisis and reached a new peak during President Obama’s highly active first term. By some measures, the unhappiness has remained at that peak; by other measures, it’s even higher today.
Consider this: When Pew asks people whether they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing, it offers three possible answers: just about always, most of the time, only some of the time. In the most recent survey, 18 percent of Republicans skipped all of those answers and volunteered “never.” That share was up from 8 percent who did so four years earlier.
Similarly, 33 percent of Republicans said they were angry at the federal government (as opposed to frustrated or basically content), up from 27 percent four years earlier. Only 12 percent of Republicans report being satisfied with the country’s direction — roughly unchanged since 2012 and compared with the 18 percent who gave that answer in October 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis. These patterns suggest that a candidate like Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz could have emerged in the 2012 cycle, but probably not earlier.
The roots of the anger have two broad causes: one economic, one cultural. The economic cause is the great 21st-century wage slowdown .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/upshot/the-great-wage-slowdown-of-the-21st-century.html . The typical family makes only marginally more money than it did in the year 2000, because of the financial crisis and disappointing wage growth on either side of the crisis. Historically, nothing breeds .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/upshot/the-great-wage-slowdown-looming-over-politics.html .. political frustration as reliably as economic stagnation.
For many Republican voters, this economic malaise is aggravated by cultural change. Same-sex marriage .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier .. is now the law of the land. The share of Americans identifying as Christian is dropping .. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ . Only about half of babies born last year were non-Hispanic whites — while about nine in 10 of Republicans .. http://www.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx .. are non-Hispanic whites. A liberal African-American has been elected president, twice.
To be clear, many Republicans are frustrated without being racially prejudiced. But there is abundant evidence .. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/23/donald-trump/trump-tweet-blacks-white-homicide-victims/ — from polls .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/24/its-not-just-donald-trump-half-of-republicans-shares-his-views-on-immigrants-and-refugees/ .. and analysis .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html .. of web behavior, for example — that racial attitudes play a significant role in today’s politics.
One especially telling explanation of the 2016 campaign comes from a Pew question about Republicans’ attitudes toward their own party. In more than two decades of Pew polling on the question, Republicans’ unhappiness with their party during the Obama presidency has exceeded any previous level of self-party dissatisfaction, among either Democrats or Republicans.
IMAGE: Republican Disaffection
Share of self-identified Republicans saying they are dissatisfied with the country’s direction.
Source: Pew Research Center
About half of Republicans have disapproved of their party’s congressional leaders in most polls since 2013. By comparison, only about 20 percent tended to disapprove during the Bush presidency.
No wonder, then, that candidates who sound so angry are doing so well this year. The actual start of voting — now just two weeks away — still has the potential to return a sense of historical normalcy to the campaign. But the Republican electorate is substantially different from the way it used to be, which means the result could be, too.
Correction: January 19, 2016
An earlier version of a chart with this article incorrectly left off Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two of the national polling leaders among Republicans
in the weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucuses. Mr. Giuliani led an average of polls, at 20 percent, and Mr. Romney was fourth at 14 percent.
The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our newsletter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/upshot/why-2016-is-different-from-all-other-recent-elections.html?rref=upshot
See also:
Tea Party Is ‘Bald-Faced Racists,’ White Privilege Conference Speaker Tells Sea Of White People
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111713501
Liberal Racism: 25 Things I Learned After I Wrote About ISIS
and White Racism at the Daily Kos .. by Chauncey Devega
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=110660213
White Privilege, Quantified
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=111735894
What whites don't know about racism
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=119418869
Tim Wise at his profound insightful best
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108740070
Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115622106
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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