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Last week, the Atlanta-based convention Dragon Con released its ballot of nominees for its second-ever Dragon Awards, a wide-ranging list of novels, comics, and games designed to be a true reflection of fan-favorite stories published in the last year. Now, two nominees, Alison Littlewood and John Scalzi, have said theyre withdrawing their names for consideration, over concerns that theyre being used as puppets in a larger fandom culture war.

This years nominees have been widely split between enormously popular authors such as N.K. Jemisin, James S.A. Corey, Scalzi, and some lesser-known authors propelled onto the ballot by blocs of voters looking to score victories for their side in the culture wars.

Unlike the Hugos and Nebulas, the other major speculative fiction awards, the Dragon Awards are open to popular vote. Anyone on the internet can provide a nomination and then vote for finalists. Thats led to concerns that the results will be gamed by the political factions within science-fiction and fantasy fandom, because its happened before. Scalzi has been pointedly outspoken about progressive issues in science-fiction fandom and writing, and has been frequently been attacked and trolled by conservative and alt-right members of the community over his views. One particular faction of these fans calls itself the Rabid Puppies, and has worked to game another award, the Hugo Award, by stacking the nominees with their own set of works.

When Dragon Con announced this years nominee ballot last week, Littlewood found shed earned a nomination for her horror novel The Hidden People. However, she wrote to the organizers and asked to be withdrawn after she learned it was selected by a voting bloc who are attempting, for reasons of their own, to influence the awards outcome. A couple of days later, Scalzi, who earned a nomination for his space opera novel The Collapsing Empire, also announced his intention to withdraw his nomination. Some other finalists are trying to use the book and me as a prop, he wrote, to advance a manufactured us vs. them vote-pumping narrative based on ideology or whatever.

Littlewood asked to be removed, only to be told she couldnt withdraw

Littlewood says she was informed that she wouldnt be allowed to withdraw her nomination. Pat Henry, the conventions president and founder, wrote to her and said he was refusing to remove her name from the ballot, and that while the convention was aware outside groups were manipulating the results, we believe that as we add voters, they will become irrelevant in the our awards.

When asked about their refusal to remove authors, Henry explained in a statement to The Verge that one of the goals was to provide a long list of recently released reading materials for fans, and that when an author any author asks to withdraw from the ballot, then the reading list becomes less. Its less broad, less balanced, and less about the fans. In 2016, Scalzi was nominated for his novel The End of All Things, and announced he would withdraw his nomination last year, and his wish to be removed wasnt honored. Henry also says Dragon Con wont release the raw voting figures for this years convention, in an effort to prevent vote-packing.

While this tactic does result in a long list of recommended books and games for fans and attendees, it potentially puts a number of authors into an untenable position of being associated with a group they vehemently disagree with, or becoming proxies for voters to vote against. Because the awards organizers arent permitting nominees to remove themselves, authors have no recourse or agency in the situation.

In an email to The Verge, Littlewood explained that she was never contacted by Rabid Puppy founder Theodore Beale (who goes by the name Vox Day online), who put her on his slate. She didnt know shed been nominated until after the fact. I had heard [about] the controversy around the Hugos and the Rabid Puppies, she explained. I have no wish to benefit from any interference in the awards and do not wish to be associated with the Puppies, so I wrote to the organizers with a polite request to withdraw. While she doesnt have access to the numbers that put her on the ballot, she certainly gained the impression that undue influence was at play.

Its unusual for speculative-fiction nominees to not be informed about their pending nomination, which makes this situation even more awkward. Other genre awards, such as the Hugo and Nebulas, notify authors in advance before nominations are published, to give them the opportunity to bow out for a range of reasons. Some might not feel a given story deserves to be nominated, like when Ted Chiang withdrew his story Liking What You See: A Documentary from the Hugos in 2003. Others might not want to be associated with a political faction, such as Marko Kloos, who learned his novel was put on the Hugo ballot by a Rabid Puppy slate. A Dragon Con spokesperson explained that voting began with the release of the nominations, which means that the authors didnt have an opportunity to exit before the ballot was finalized.

If the Dragon Awards wants to prevent its award from being used, allowing authors to remove themselves is an essential step

While Dragon Con claims to have taken steps to contend with ballot-stuffing, not allowing creators to remove themselves from consideration seems like a counterintuitive step. While the convention organizers say theyre trying to avoid the drama, this seems like a step designed to protect the reputation of the fledgling awards, rather than that of the authors it claims are the genres favorites.

All of this speaks to a larger issue, which the Hugos, Nebulas, Dragons, and many other awards seem to be facing: rather than celebrations of the best the genre has to offer, theyre pushed into becoming battlegrounds for hostile factions that wish to plant a flag on a particular bit of popular culture. Fans have already begun working on ways to change how voting works for The Hugo Awards to avoid these issues. If the organizers behind the Dragon Awards truly want their award to reflect the genres fans, they will need to take some of the authors concerns into consideration.

Meanwhile, voting for the awards has opened, and the winners will be announced at Dragon Con on September 3rd.

Update August 10th, 10:30AM ET: Alison Littlewood and John Scalzi have each informed The Verge that the awards organizers have since been in touch with them to address their concerns, and they will now be able to withdraw if they so wish. Littlewood told The Verge she will withdraw her name from the ballot (although at present, her name still appears on the list of nominees), while Scalzi issued the following statement:

After I contacted the Dragon Award administrators regarding my intention to withdraw, the administrators got back to me and asked if I would consider staying on the ballot. They were hearing the community's feedback and criticism and were acting on it. Their decision to honor Ms. Littlewood's request to withdraw is a first example of what I see as their willingness to listen and learn, and is an action I applaud. To honor that action, and in sincere appreciation of the readers and fans who placed me on the Dragon Awards finalist list, I have agreed to remain on the ballot this year. I encourage everyone to vote for their own favorite works on the Dragon Awards finalist list.

DragonCon has issued a statement of its own, saying that it will remove Ms. Littlewoods book from the 2017 Dragon Awards ballot and re-issue ballots to those people who voted for her book. We believe that fans who voted for The Hidden People should have a second chance to vote for a favorite horror work. No new title will be added to the ballot.

Original post:
Two science-fiction authors say they're being used as proxies in a ... - The Verge

NEW YORK Call it the anti-diversity administration.

President Donald Trump is on course to reverse decades-old efforts to empower and protect minorities. Affirmative action policies at colleges and universities are being reviewed by the Justice Department. Trump supports curbs on immigration of non-English speakers and proposed a ban on transgender people in the military. He says its time to stop political correctness.

But civil rights advocates promise him a fight at every turn and a philosophically divided Supreme Court will likely be the final arbiter on the most contentious issues.

Trumps backers say the change in tone is welcome. Diversity is a way of justifying discrimination hiring people based on their race, and thats a violation of federal law, said Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Thats what the prior administration wanted to ignore.

Conservative commentators like Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck, and websites including the Drudge Report and Breitbart have railed against political correctness for years. Whats new is that the culture warriors now have a backer in the highest office in the land against rights advocates.

We must stop being politically correct, Trump wrote on Twitter in June, criticizing the mayor of Londons response to a terror attack attributed to radical Islamists that left seven dead. If we dont get smart it will only get worse.

Trumps stance appeals to his mostly white base, which has felt left behind in a country where it will be a minority by midcentury. His policies are also a sharp rebuke to predecessor Barack Obama, the first black president, and a vocal advocate for diversity.

Although the majority of Americans say an increasingly diverse population is positive the percentage of whites has fallen from 84 percent in 1965 to 62 percent in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center there is a deep political divide. According to a Pew poll last year, 78 percent of Democrats agreed that immigrants strengthened the country compared with 35 percent of Republicans.

From executive orders to early-morning tweets, Trump has used every means to get his anti-diversity message across. His administration is a reflection of his attitudes. Eighteen of the 24 Cabinet members are white males. Thats a break from the trends of earlier presidents, who had increasingly surrounded themselves with more women advisers and people of different races. About a third of Obamas Cabinet was composed of white men.

The administration will have to fend off legal challenges to the presidents anti-diversity policies. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have sued to overturn Trumps actions, often with the support of coalitions of Democratic state attorneys generals.

The administration is also looking to the courts to further its agenda. The Justice Department intervened in an employment lawsuit, arguing that federal gender-discrimination laws shouldnt apply to sexual orientation, reversing course from the past decade of court rulings.

The U.S. Supreme Court, where justices are divided between conservatives and liberals, is already set to decide in October whether Trumps travel ban is constitutional. The make up of the court may change to become more conservative if members of the liberal wing retire in the next two years, as the challenges to Trumps policies wind through lower courts.

Even if some or all of these efforts fail to get off the ground or crumble in court, they send a message to Trumps base that the embrace of diverse groups that was a signature of the Obama administration is no longer a go.

Here is the original post:
Trump's anti-diversity stance sparks culture wars - The Recorder

The Google engineer who blamed biological differences for the paucity of women in tech had every right to express his views. And Google likely had every right to fire him, workplace experts and lawyers say.

Special circumstances from the country's divisive political climate to Silicon Valley's broader problem with gender equity contributed to the outrage and subsequent firing. But the fallout should still serve as a warning to anyone in any industry expressing unpopular, fiery viewpoints.

"Anyone who makes a statement like this and expects to stick around ... is foolish," said David Lewis, CEO of Operations Inc., a human resources consulting firm.

WHY HE LOST HIS JOB

The engineer, James Damore, wrote a memo criticizing Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for "alienating conservatives." The parts that drew the most outrage made such assertions as women "prefer jobs in social and artistic areas" and have a "lower stress tolerance" and "harder time" leading, while more men "may like coding because it requires systemizing."

Google's code of conduct says workers "are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination." Google's CEO, Sundar Picahi, said Damore violated this code.

Yonatan Zunger, who recently left Google as a senior engineer, wrote in a Medium post that he would have had no choice but to fire Damore had he been his supervisor.

"Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you?" he wrote . "I certainly couldn't assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face."

Though one might argue for a right to free speech, however unpopular, such protections are generally limited to government and other public employees and to unionized workers with rights to disciplinary hearings before any firing.

Broader protections are granted to comments about workplace conditions. Damore argues in a federal labor complaint that this applies to his case, but experts disagree.

"By posting that memo, he forfeited his job," said Jennifer Lee Magas, public relations professor at Pace University and a former employment law attorney. "He was fired for his words, but also for being daft enough to post these thoughts on an open workplace forum, where he was sure to be met with backlash and to offend his colleagues male and female alike."

UNIQUELY GOOGLE

The fallout comes as Silicon Valley faces a watershed moment over gender and ethnic diversity.

Blamed for years for not hiring enough women and minorities and not welcoming them once they are hired tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Uber have promised big changes. These have included diversity and mentoring programs and coding classes for groups underrepresented among the companies' technical and leadership staff. Many tech companies also pledge to interview, though not necessarily hire, minority candidates.

These are the sorts of things Damore's memo railed against.

As such, experts say Damore might not have been fired at a company that doesn't have such a clear message on diversity.

In addition, had Damore worked for a smaller, lesser-known company, an internal memo might not have created such a "media storm," said Aimee Delaney, a Hinshaw & Culbertson attorney who represents companies on labor matters.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

Still, bringing so much public, negative attention would spell trouble for any worker. That's especially so in this age of fast-spreading social media posts, when internal company documents can easily leak and go viral.

It didn't help that this was in the heart of Silicon Valley, where typing fingers are on 24/7 and people rarely disconnect from social media, even on a quiet August weekend. Or that Google is a brand consumers interact with all day and want to read about when memos go viral.

Perhaps the biggest lesson is this: Don't be so quick to post your angry thoughts for thousands, then millions, to see.

Michael Schmidt, vice chairman of labor and employment at the Cozen O'Connor law firm, said that while workers might have refrained from such remarks around the physical watercooler, "people treat ... electronic communications much more informally than face-to-face speech."

But the consequences are similar, if not more severe.

EXPLOSIVE CLIMATE

Initially shared on an internal Google network, the memo leaked out to the public over the weekend, first in bits and pieces and then in its 10-page entirety.

It took a life of its own as outsiders weighed in. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took to Twitter to offer Damore a job. One conservative group, Americans for Limited Government, criticized what it called Google's politically correct culture and left-wing bias. Others called for a Google boycott.

Known for its motto, "don't be evil," Google is broadly seen as a liberal-leaning company, something Damore criticized in his manifesto. Liberals and tech industry leaders came to Google's defense and denounced Damore's claims as baseless and harmful.

"It's fair to say that whatever side of the political aisle you are on, ... we are in a climate where we are dealing with very highly charged and emotional issues," Schmidt said. "And those issues are spilling into the workplace."

Instead of looking for a bright-line test on what is permissible, he said, "both sides need to understand there has to be a sensitivity to the bigger picture," a level of respect and cultural sensitivity across all demographics.

Read more:
Google gender debacle speaks to tech culture wars, politics - ABC News

Reverend Jesse Jackson speaks during a demonstration outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas ahead of the third presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. The debate, moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, will be the final meeting of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ahead of the November 8 presidential election. Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergDaniel AckerBloomberg

Call it the anti-diversity administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump is on course to reverse decades-old efforts to empower and protect minorities. Affirmative action policies at colleges and universities are being reviewed by the Justice Department. Trump supports curbs on immigration of non-English speakers and proposed a ban on transgender people in the military. He says its time to stop political correctness.

But civil rights advocates promise him a fight at every turn -- and a philosophically divided Supreme Court will likely be the final arbiter on the most contentious issues.

Trumps backers say the change in tone is welcome. "Diversity is a way of justifying discrimination -- hiring people based on their race, and thats a violation of federal law," said Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Thats what the prior administration wanted to ignore."

The effects are rippling across America, with workers stepping out and challenging companies policies on diversity. A Google engineer wrote a memo arguing that men were more suited biologically to work in tech than women, drawing support of Breitbart News -- the right-wing website that was run by Trumps chief strategist Stephen Bannon. Google fired the employee this week.

Conservative commentators like Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck, and websites including the Drudge Report and Breitbart have railed against political correctness for years. Whats new is that the culture warriors now have a backer in the highest office in the land against rights advocates.

We must stop being politically correct, Trump wrote on Twitter in June, criticizing the mayor of Londons response to a terror attack attributed to radical Islamists that left seven dead. If we dont get smart it will only get worse.

Trumps stance appeals to his mostly white base, which has felt left behind in a country where they will be a minority by mid-century. His policies are also a sharp rebuke to predecessor Barack Obama, the first black president, and a vocal advocate for diversity.

Trump "is showing a radical disregard for the civil rights accomplishments of the past 50 years," said Reverend Jesse Jackson, who marched in 1965 with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and organized the Rainbow Coalition in 1984. "All elements of inclusion are under attack. Its a countercultural revolution."

Although the majority of Americans say an increasingly diverse population is positive -- the percentage of whites has fallen from 84 percent in 1965 to 62 percent in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center -- there is a deep political divide. According to a Pew poll last year, 78 percent of Democrats agreed that immigrants strengthened the country -- compared with 35 percent of Republicans.

That division was particularly pronounced after Trump announced plans in January to ban entry to the U.S. to people from seven mostly Muslim countries. The move was backed by 81 percent of Republicans and only 9 percent of Democrats, according to a February Pew poll.

From executive orders to early morning tweets, Trump has used every means to get his anti-diversity message across. His administration is a reflection of his attitudes. Eighteen of the 24 cabinet members are white males. Thats a break from the trends of earlier presidents, who had increasingly surrounded themselves with more women advisers and people of different races. About a third of Obamas cabinet was composed of white men.

"This administration is signaling in not so subtle ways that were not as concerned about civil rights anymore," said Clayborne Carson, a Stanford historian who has spent most of his professional life studying King Jr. "The impact is that certain people are going to feel empowered to move in a different direction from the ideal of diversity."

When the Google engineer was fired, the free-speech platform Gab offered him a job, as CEO Andrew Torba said Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted.

The administration will have to fend off legal challenges to the presidents anti-diversity policies. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have sued to overturn Trumps actions, often with the support of coalitions of Democratic state attorneys generals.

President Trumps discriminatory policies arent just un-American -- in some cases, theyre unconstitutional, and well fight them every step of the way, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in an emailed statement.

The administration is also looking to the courts to further its agenda. The Justice Department intervened in an employment lawsuit, arguing that federal gender-discrimination laws shouldnt apply to sexual orientation, reversing course from the past decade of court rulings.

The U.S. Supreme Court, where justices are divided between conservatives and liberals, is already set to decide in October whether Trumps travel ban is constitutional. The make up of the court may change to become more conservative if members of the liberal wing retire in the next two years, as the challenges to Trumps policies wind through lower courts.

Even if some or all of these efforts fail to get off the ground or crumble in court, they send a message to Trumps base that the embrace of diverse groups that was a signature of the Obama administration is no longer a go.

More here:
How Trump's Policies Are Fueling the Culture Wars - TIME

President Donald Trump, flanked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., left, and Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday during the unveiling of legislation that would place new limits on legal immigration. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption

No single issue has been a greater animating force for the Republican base over the past decade than immigration except maybe the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare).

And with the failure of GOP health care efforts in Congress and sliding poll numbers this summer, the Trump White House seems to be making a concerted effort to elevate cultural wedge issues, from immigration and a announcing a ban on transgender people in the military to affirmative action and police conduct.

"Trump has been under siege since he took office," said Brian Jones, a Republican political consultant and veteran of several presidential campaigns, "and the cumulative effect of his administration's missteps is an eroding approval rating, even among Republicans."

So Trump's team is rolling the dice, betting that if he can't get something done through the usual avenues in Washington, he can at least keep his base supporters fired up outside of it with a dose of the cultural grievance that helped get him elected.

When a president's back is up against the wall, what he's got left is his base. He can't afford to lose his most ardent supporters, so, often, presidents go back to the embers they stoked to fire up those supporters in the first place be they cultural or economic.

The poem that you're referring to that was added later is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty."

Stephen Miller, White House policy adviser, on the Emma Lazarus poem "The New Colossus," found at the Statue of Liberty that references "huddled masses."

Wednesday, the Trump White House backed a hard-line immigration proposal that would significantly curtail legal immigration. The move came less than a week after the Senate health care bill went up in smoke and on the heels of some other culture-war moves from the president.

Trump tweeted a call for a ban on transgender people in the military; the Justice Department put up a personnel posting attempting to staff an effort to sue for racial discrimination against Asian Americans in university admissions; and Trump suggested in a speech to police that they should be "rough" with certain suspects.

That is all red meat for his base issues that have historically played to white grievance.

Out of the hot focus of the legislative and Russia investigation headlines, many of these issues have been there since the start of the Trump presidency. One of his first major efforts was the travel ban that targets people from six majority-Muslim countries. And the Justice Department is working to try to cut off funding to so-called sanctuary cities, as well as urging prosecutors to seek the toughest sentences possible for nonviolent drug offenders, reversing Obama-era policy.

"I assume they're doing it because these are policies that the president believes will 'make America great again,'" said Alex Conant, a former Republican National Committee spokesman and veteran political operative, who worked for Marco Rubio's presidential campaign. "Politically, it could help him maintain a floor as his poll numbers continue to slide."

And this week, Trump received the worst numbers of his presidency. A Quinnipiac poll had the president at just a 33 percent approval rating with Republican support slipping.

"Speak English"

"Speak English," the president and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., one of the sponsors of the immigration legislation, said was one of their requirements for those who want to come to the United States. They also said these new legal immigrants had to have skills that could help the economy and that they had to be able to financially support themselves.

When confronted with the poem at the Statue of Liberty about welcoming the tired, huddled masses, White House policy adviser Stephen Miller told reporters, "The poem that you're referring to that was added later is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty."

The poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus was added in 1903, 17 years after Lady Liberty was dedicated. It was written by Lazarus 20 years earlier as part of a fundraiser for the statue. Lazarus was the daughter of a wealthy sugar refining family, but was taken with the plight of the immigrants and refugees with whom she worked. Her poem depicts the Statue of Liberty as the "Mother of Exiles." Lazarus' story and poem are featured by the National Park Service on its Statue of Liberty website.

The American immigration story for lots, if not most, is one of people coming to the U.S. with little more than the clothes on their backs "yearning to breathe free." Many are escaping poverty or war or simply seeking a better life, a chance to live a middle-class existence for themselves and their children.

It's the quintessential American Dream, that anyone can make it in the U.S.

The Trump administration argues that it is pushing forward with backing the legislation because it would be good for American jobs, especially for minorities already in the country, who cannot find work.

"Among those hit the hardest in recent years have been immigrants and, very importantly, minority workers competing for jobs against brand-new arrivals," Trump said Wednesday in announcing his support for the bill. "And it has not been fair to our people, to our citizens, to our workers."

That sentiment is real. Anecdotally, low-skilled laborers have traditionally been prone to skepticism toward new immigrants, who can be paid less. Businesses argue that Americans won't take the more dangerous, laborious work.

NPR's Amita Kelly fact checked the claim on Friday, finding mixed conclusions:

"Economists disagree whether or how much an influx of immigrants depresses wages. Some have found that new immigrants depress wages for certain groups, such as teenagers or workers with a high school diploma or less. Others say the overall effect on the economy is tiny, and an influx of immigrant workers vitalizes the economy overall."

(Kelly also dove into the specific research cited by Miller, the White House policy adviser who has been pushing this issue for years going back to when he was an aide to Jeff Sessions when he was a senator.)

It's been a similar story for years. The Washington Post took a deep look at this in 2013 and wrote:

"According to some experts, the flood of Hispanic immigrant workers in the past 25 years both legal and illegal has had a much smaller effect on employment patterns than other trends, including factory flight overseas, weakened labor unions and a spate of recessions.

"They also say that low-skilled immigration has been both a boon and a burden to America. It has squeezed public services but generated tax revenue. It has depressed wages in some areas but has revitalized ailing communities. The group that suffers most from the influx of new foreign laborers, these experts report, are earlier immigrants."

Proving divisive

It's not just the immigration push that's proving divisive. So are the other recent controversial, culturally focused steps taken by the administration.

The Justice Department says its affirmative-action effort is about "racial discrimination against Asian Americans," according to a Justice Department spokeswoman, who added that the department "is committed to protecting all Americans from all forms of illegal race-based discrimination."

"Maybe now people will finally pay attention to something we Asian Americans have been talking about for so long," Joe Zhou told the Los Angeles Times. Zhou sued Harvard in 2015 on behalf of his son, who did not get in, despite being a valedictorian with a 4.44 grade-point average, near-perfect SATs and involvement in extracurricular activities.

But not all Asian-Americans feel that way. The advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice condemned the Trump administration's move and said it supports affirmative-action policies.

"Affirmative action expands educational opportunities for all applicants in a society where cultural and racial biases in testing and access to quality education deny many students equal opportunity," the group wrote in a statement.

It noted that affirmative-action policies particularly help "low-income and working class Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders."

Civil rights groups say affirmative-action opponents often focus on Asian-Americans for these kinds of cases as part of an effort to weaken affirmative-action policies more broadly.

"Since the new administration has been in office, it has been moving very deliberately to operationalize its nativist agenda with policies like this one," Advancing Justice continued. "Instead of attacking affirmative action programs, the Trump administration should use its platform to increase opportunities for all students while continuing to address the persistent equity gaps for low-income students and students of color. We support affirmative action and refuse to allow Asian Americans to be used as a wedge between communities of color."

Cornell William Brooks, the former head of the NAACP, said on CNN Wednesday that the Justice Department was looking for "ideological victims" and "racial bogeymen" that don't exist.

That's part of why, despite Trump's appeal to racial and ethnic minorities that legal immigration hurts them they are less likely to peel away.

These things are always a matter of priorities.

Trump's attempts to win over black and brown communities have often fallen short. "What the hell do you have to lose?" he asked in comments aimed at black voters at a campaign rally delivered to a largely white crowd in a white Wisconsin suburb.

Trump wound up winning just 8 percent of black voters in 2016, less than George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and barely more than Mitt Romney in 2012.

In reality, those appeals were also largely aimed at trying to keep the GOP voting bloc together, an effort to make Trump appear open-minded to white, suburban Republicans.

The impending ban on transgender people serving in the military, which Trump announced via Twitter, caught Pentagon leaders off guard. Some seemed none-too-pleased with it and appear to be breaking ranks with their commander in chief.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft told a transgender service member, for example, he "will not break faith."

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford issued a statement saying, "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance."

Trying to stop the slide

The immigration legislation has little chance of passing in Congress. It doesn't have the support of 50 Republican senators, let alone the 60 total votes in the Senate needed to overcome a filibuster.

So why push this?

Narratives of health care failure and Russia investigations have dominated headlines and cable news over the past couple of months. And Trump's numbers have suffered because of it.

That Quinnipiac poll is hardly the only one. Every poll has shown a clear trend. Even Rasmussen, a polling outfit the statistical community frowns upon but the president pays attention to, had Trump at 38 percent Wednesday. Drudge highlighted the poll on its site in bolded and in red font this way:

These are historically bad numbers for a president. No one has been this low at the same time since polling began. But, in fairness, he also had historically bad numbers for any major-party nominee and still won the presidency.

That's important to remember, but it certainly didn't matter in the election, and it's not everything now. The actions the White House is taking and the issues the administration is pushing signal worries among the president's political team.

"Looking at this through a political lens," Jones said, "it appears these coordinated announcements are an effort to keep his core supporters engaged and on board the Trump train."

There are signs of bumpiness on the tracks. Trump won independents in 2016, but a late June NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, for example, found his approval had slipped 17 points with them since February.

His base, however, appeared intact. That may be changing. Traditionally, even in the worst of times, presidents retain very high support among their party. But Quinnipiac found a softening, a 10-point drop since June among Republicans saying they "very strongly" approve of the president. Barely a majority of Republicans said they "strongly approved," 53 percent, down from 63 percent two months ago.

"The trend is worrisome," Conant said.

Insider looking out?

Trump has begun distancing himself from congressional Republicans, referring to them as "they" and publicly shaming them for having promised action on health care for seven years.

But there's only so long a president can position himself as the "outsider." Obama certainly tried. He ran a re-election campaign partially on it.

Trump is at least now partly responsible for the legislative push and for making the argument for policies. That's something he has failed to do effectively. On health care, for example, he never got beyond boilerplate political talking points and engaged the public with any depth on the nuts and bolts of policy.

Yes, health care is complicated.

President Obama was steeped in policy and, on many issues, especially health care, he was his administration's best spokesman. But when there were failures, just like Trump, Obama blamed "Congress," all of Congress.

That infuriated his own party.

"The most important lesson I've learned, is that you can't change Washington from the inside," Obama said in September 2012, two months before winning re-election. "You can only change it from the outside."

For Trump, the blameless posture is complicated by the deal-maker persona he's created for himself. He wrote a book about it. Trump has pledged to make the "best" deals.

So far, though, he's dealt only with Republicans, making no serious push to bring Democrats on board. At this point, he's only at the threatening stage with Democrats.

Maybe that shouldn't be surprising, however, considering how Trump advocates making deals in The Art of the Deal. In one section, he imagines how he would have responded to a hostile takeover attempt that played out in a different company.

"I'm not saying I would also have won, but if I went down, it would have been kicking and screaming," he wrote. "I would have closed the hotel and let it rot. That's just my makeup. I fight when I feel I'm getting screwed, even if it's costly and difficult and highly risky."

That could explain tweets like this, sent in the wee hours of July 28, the morning after the Senate's Obamacare repeal effort failed:

"As I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, then deal. Watch!"

"Time to force the conversation"

The White House seems to see this culture push as good politics.

In the briefing room with reporters, Miller, for example, called the immigration legislation "enormously advantageous" and said it was "time to force the conversation on this issue."

He even explicitly mentioned "battleground states."

"Public support is so immense on this," Miller contended. "If you just look at the polling data in many key battleground states across the country that over time you're going to see massive public push for this kind of legislation."

That doesn't terribly sound unlike the unnamed White House aide, who told Axios this about the president's announcement of a ban on transgender people in the military:

"This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to take complete ownership of this issue. How will the blue-collar voters in these states respond when senators up for re-election in 2018 like Debbie Stabenow are forced to make their opposition to this a key plank of their campaigns?"

But, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed any electoral calculations behind the ban. Asked on July 26 if the decision had anything to do with trying to put pressure on Democrats in battleground seats, she said, "Not that I'm aware." She said it was all about "military readiness and unit cohesion."

A different official also told the Washington Post that the decision was about "military readiness and military resource decision." But, added, "It will be fun to watch some of them [Democrats] have to defend this, but that was never an impetus."

Some Republicans worry reviving the culture wars is the wrong place to focus to achieve the outcome this White House is looking for.

"The challenge is for every political action there is an equal and opposite reaction," Jones said, "and I think many Main Street Republicans, let alone independents, will bristle at proposals they consider to be exceptionally exclusionary particularly in the absence of addressing issues that traditionally animate the whole party, like tax reform."

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