conservatives

Mike Pence: Lying for Jesus?

Juhem Navarro-Rivera, , , , , , , 1 Comment

Last week, Vice President Mike Pence was a commencement speaker at Hillsdale College, a right-wing small college in Michigan. His remarks, summarized in a series of tweets, included this obviously false statement:


If you have not been living under a rock for the past decade or so, you know that religious affiliation in the United States has declined significantly. In fact, even the most “devout” religious group among Americans, the white evangelical cohort, has seen its ranks depleted as young people leave in droves its politicized faith.

While we all know he’s lying, there are some charitable interpretations of this lie. A piece in the Washington Post’s Fact Checker traces Pence’s remarks to a piece in The Federalist that cites some legit research by sociologist Roger Finke and by sociologists Landon Schnabel and Sean Bock. The Post article suggests that Pence is misinterpreting the results of a study by Schnabel and Bock that finds that strong affiliation with religion has been constant in the United States, even as nonreligion increased.

I don’t think Pence was interested in statistics and nuanced analysis of religious trends when his speechwriter(s) drafted the speech. Given the audience, graduates of a high-profile right-wing college (alma mater of luminaries such as Club for Growth president Chris Chocola and mercenary extraordinaire Erik Prince), Pence was talking about power. An earlier tweet in that thread hints about power as the theme of the address.


The current President of the United States has done everything in his power to please his white evangelical base. From nominating right-wing ideologues to the courts to attacking or reversing policies enacted by his predecessor on cultural matters such as immigration, LGBTQ rights, and women’s rights. Reduced immigration, the return to the sexual mores of the 18th century, and many more retrograde policies have been the longtime goals of the Christian Right. This is why white evangelicals are the President’s strongest supporters. So when Pence says that faith is strong, and is rising, he means that the views of those in power are aligned with those in the Hillsdale commencement audience. POTUS is making good on his promise to “make America great again” for a segment of the population that thinks that American greatness is its power to oppress.
 

Mike Pence: Lying for Jesus?
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FTA: Conservatives Like the Police State

Juhem Navarro-Rivera, , , , , Leave a comment

From the Archives (FTA) is a category of posts previously published at The Latinone that still have some contemporary relevance. This FTA post was originally published on July 12, 2017.

A new Gallup Poll finds that confidence in the police is returning to its historical average, something that does not bode well for any type of reform of police practices. According to Gallup:

Confidence in police … dropped to a record-tying low of 52% in June 2015, as the Black Lives Matter movement gained national attention with a series of protests against police shootings of unarmed blacks in New York City; Ferguson, Missouri; and North Charleston, South Carolina. (Emphasis mine)

Two years ago confidence dropped as some people started realizing that maybe, just maybe police forces should be held to some sort of accountability. But not anymore. After Trump’s victory and the confirmation of former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General in the new administration has restored the confidence in the police among certain types. You know the types. Gallup gives a snapshot of who they are.

Confidence among Republicans and Republican leaners, whites, conservatives and those aged 55 or older has been stable or has increased slightly.

That’s not the case among young people, particularly those who are people of color as this table published by Gallup shows.

Source: Gallup

Confidence among conservatives has increased since 2015. Basically when confidence was dropping nationally because the reports of abuse were being documented in film, conservatives decided that shooting unarmed black people is what police should be doing.

Gallup further reports that in the June 2017 survey they base most of their analysis on, conservative confidence in the police is 73 percent, the highest it has been since 2000. Not surprisingly, an era where mass incarceration and abuse was reaching its apex and the type of policies that AG Sessions wants to return to. Since the only institutions conservatives have more confidence on are the military and businesses, we can be pretty confident that they are pretty cool with fascism as well.

FTA: Conservatives Like the Police State