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Some of the political rhetoric in use today bears an uncanny resemblance to the kind of incitement that ultimately led to World War II.

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Its an old maxim that ignorance of history condemns you to repeat the disastrous errors of the past. This year will mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings on D-Day, when some 73,000 American GIs were part of a combined Allied force of 160,000 men landing in Normandy, France, in a desperate gamble to liberate Europe and put an end to World War II. Anyone who was there and is still alive most likely is approaching his hundredth birthday around now.

The Greatest Generation deserves our gratitude, but the history we really need to remember concerns the decades that preceded 1944 and made World War II an inevitability. It was a period that Irish poet William Butler Yeats described in his poem The Second Coming as sliding into chaos: the centre cannot hold.

Today, much of the world is again asking itself whether democracy is really the system of government they want. The notion articulated by Abraham Lincoln that there should be a government by the people and for the people is under attack, even in the United States. A significant number of people would prefer government for some of the people, to be decided by the right people.

Americas traditional role as a de facto experiment in the ideas of the Enlightenment is under attack. These days, America is beginning to look pretty much like everywhere else, if not measurably worse.

Before we slide down this slippery slope, it might be worth taking a second look at how similar disputes in the 1920s and 1930s took the entire planet to the brink of total destruction.

Adolf Hitler is generally blamed for the madness of World War II, but the Fuehrer (the Leader), as he liked to call himself, merely nudged German society in a direction it was already predisposed to follow. In the process, Hitler perfected two rhetorical tricks. The first came to be known as the Big Lie, a massive falsehood repeated so often that the public came to believe it.

The second, more banal tactic consisted of using incendiary rhetoric to incite prejudices that were already lurking below the surface in the public unconscious. Hitler inflamed these underlying prejudices to create an alien presence in the public mind. The aliens, Hitler suggested, wanted nothing less than to rape your women, corrupt your children, and spread general mayhem throughout society.

Hitler crafted his Big Lie in Mein Kampf (My Struggle), his litany of complaints against established German society. His argument in the book is that Germany could not have been militarily defeated in World War I. Its surrender had to have been a betrayal by a conspiracy of Marxist Jewish traitors and liberal intellectuals.

Hitler called his imagined conspiracy the Big Lie. Today most historians agree that the real Big Lie was Hitlers false interpretation of what had happened. Germanys defeat in fact resulted from miscalculations, disastrous risk-taking, and general indecision on the part of the last German emperor and king of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Germany found itself stalemated in endless trench warfare, running out of both men and ammunition and facing exhaustion. The end came after America finally tipped the balance in favor of the Allies. There had never been a conspiracy; Germany simply lacked the manpower and resources to overcome the combined Allied Powers.

Hitlers denial of Germanys defeat looks absurd to anyone with even the slightest notion of what really happened; but, instead of facing reality, Hitler doubled down on his interpretation. It didnt matter whether it made sense; it was what he wanted to believe. In the end, he came to realize that if the lie is big enough and repeated often enough, the truth doesnt really matter: A public that, in any case, is only half paying attention will believe almost anything as long as you keep repeating it over and over from the right kind of pulpit.

Given the choice between admitting the shame of defeat or blaming that defeat on someone else, most Germans preferred Hitlers version. There was no longer any need to express shame over Germanys decline; the real responsibility belonged to someone else

As Hitlers Nazi movement progressed, his inner clique perfected its communication tactics. Hitlers public relations adviser, Joseph Goebbels, is often credited with observing that all that is needed to kill a democracy is a lie that is big enough.

Its an established principle in psychology that the easiest way to unify and mobilize a group is to threaten them with an outside enemy. The tactic works almost every time, even when, as in most cases, the threat is only imagined.

For Hitler, if you were Jewish you were the ideal target for a bout of public cathartic vengeance fueled by jealousy and anger. Although Germany had some of the brightest minds in Europe, the average German, the common man in the street, was not that well educated and he was most likely under constant stress from a dismal and volatile economy that promised an even more dismal future. Most were only too ready to buy into the fantasy.

To mobilize the public behind his vision, Hitler needed to find a minority that was visibly different from the masses. In the end, Hitler felt as ill-disposed to the Roma and Germanys gay population as he did to Jews the problem was that neither the Roma nor Germanys out-of-the-closet gay men were a big or influential enough minority to attract public attention.

In contrast, Germanys Jews were an important presence in German society. For the most part, they were highly educated, intellectually gifted, and in some cases lucky enough to be wealthy. These were all qualities that could be used to inspire jealousy in the heart of almost any dissatisfied German who felt abandoned by the state and society as a whole. The fact that many wealthy Jews considered themselves German aristocrats and held important roles in the German establishment was even better. Hitler was determined to destroy the German establishment. They represented his Deep State.

It soon became apparent that quite a few ordinary Germans in the limping Weimar Republic were more than ready to go along with Hitlers fiction, as evidenced by the impressive size of the massive crowds at Hitlers infamous 1934 Nuremberg rally. The German public had clearly drunk Hitlers Kool-Aid.

As Hitlers Nazi movement progressed, his inner clique perfected its communication tactics. Hitlers public relations adviser, Joseph Goebbels, is often credited with observing that all that is needed to kill a democracy is a lie that is big enough. There is no proof that Goebbels ever actually said that, but it certainly captures the strategy that he put into practice.

A psychological profile of Hitler commissioned by the US Armys OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the predecessor of todays CIA, notes that the success of the Big Lie depended on the perpetrator constantly doubling down on the original falsehood, even if at times to do so seemed absurd. An equally important tactic was to tell so many lies in rapid succession that the public had no hope of keeping anything straight.

The OSS study also quotes Hitlers confidant Kurt Ludecke on the approach. As Ludecke explained it:

[Hitlers] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off. Never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Other Hitler observers noted in the OSS study that Hitlers greatest gift may have been his ability to sense the mood of the crowd and to play to their emotions.

All of that is a lot to take in. Still, looking at the world situation today, and even at some of the recent thinking in the United States, its hard not to have a sensation of dj vu.

Its even harder to think of Hitlers Big Lie and not think of Donald Trumps doubling down on his insistence that he did not really lose the 2020 election, even though Joe Biden beat him by at least 7 million popular votes and no fewer than 74 electoral votes.

The one thing Trump doesnt do is to engage in Hitlers antisemitism. He doesnt have to. He has undocumented immigrants, Central American refugees, liberal intellectuals, and (ironically) coastal elites, not to mention just about anyone with dark skin, to get worked up about.

Just listen to Trumps speech last Veterans Day:

We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.

Or in Cedar Rapids, IA, last October:

These people are very aggressive: They drink, they have drugs, a lot of things happening.

And in Waco, TX:

With you at my side, we will totally obliterate the deep state, we will banish the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, and we will cast out the communists and Marxists, we will throw off the corrupt political class, we will beat the Democrats, we will rout the fake news media, we will stand up to the RINOs, and we will defeat Joe Biden and every single Democrat.

The target has changed. The rhetoric hasnt. Nor has the strategy.

Trumps language often sounds coarse and uneducated, but he does have a gift that was often attributed to Hitler. That is an uncanny ability to sense the temper of and resonate with a crowd, essentially to be on the same wavelength. Trump may not be able to speak English correctly, but he can sway an enthusiastic mob and convince it to follow his direction. For that, correct English and any hint of nuance would only get it in the way.

We often forget that Hitler was democratically elected to the Reichstag, Germanys parliament, in 1932. He was appointed chancellor of the Weimar Republic in 1933. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag was burned to the ground. Hitler blamed Communists for what was very likely an act of arson by the Nazis themselves.

It didnt really matter who had set the fire. After it, both the Weimar Republic and any pretense at democracy ended in Germany. Politics, the press, and meetings in general were forbidden, and Germany was set on the path to a war that would eventually reduce it and much of Europe to ashes. It took Hitler just 10 years to transform Germany from one of the leading countries in Europe into a pariah.

The situation in the United States today is obviously very different from the one that Weimar Germany faced in the early 1920s and 1930s. The US is economically much more powerful. The population is better educated, and American institutions are much stronger than their German equivalents were in a country still suffering from reparations imposed after World War I.

Nevertheless, Trump managed to incite the January 6 attack against the US Capitol, which was clearly an attempt to use violence to overthrow a legitimate election by fomenting insurrection. Unlike the Reichstag fire and Hitlers seizure of power, the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to nullify the 2020 election failed.

That said, history is a warning. The world has been here before. Then, Hitlers hate-filled Nazi followers were defeated. The next time, we might not be so lucky.

Read this article:
Dj Vu, the Big Lie, and the Future of Democracy - WhoWhatWhy

Youre not going to trip up Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) by presenting him with his past disparagements of Donald Trump. Vance has spent years reframing those comments, as when he said that Trump was leading our political discourse to a very negative place. His spin is that he was wrong and Trumps presidency was great, and that was enough to get Trump to endorse him in 2022 and propel him to his current position.

Well, that and a repeated willingness to embrace Trumps rhetoric, no matter how negative the place where Vance later ends up. As when he said during an interview Sunday that he would have done exactly what Trump wanted on Jan. 6, 2021, and blocked electors from states that voted for Joe Biden triggering a dangerous challenge to American democracy.

Vance was speaking with ABC Newss George Stephanopoulos, who seemed to be focused on testing the limits of the senators loyalty to Trump. If theres a limit, Stephanopoulos didnt find it.

Asked, for example, how he felt about Trumps having been found liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll, one of many women who have accused Trump of misconduct, Vance waved it away.

I think its actually very unfair to the victims of sexual assault, Vance said, to say that somehow their lives are being worse by electing Donald Trump for president, when what hes trying to do, I think is restore prosperity.

The prospect of future economic benefit may not be the consolation for assault victims that Vance assumes.

Vance also disparaged the verdict, suggesting that New York is one of several extremely left-wing jurisdictions where Trump is facing charges, implying that this was a stacking of the deck against Trump instead of a result of his alleged crimes while he lived in those jurisdictions. The argument that a jury would rule against Trump simply because of politics, of course, is of a piece with the prevalent idea on the right that Democrats are members of a credulous hive mind.

(As an aside, the senators effusive disparagement of wealthy donors bankrolling aggressive legal fights may not land well with his primary political patron, Peter Thiel.)

Stephanopoulos then asked Vance about the 2020 election.

Had you been vice president on January 6th, the ABC anchor asked, would you have certified the election results?

This is what Trump insisted Vice President Mike Pence not do on that day, asking Pence to instead reject electoral votes submitted by states that preferred Biden. Eventually, Vance said thats what he would have done.

If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there, Vance said. That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.

It is not a legitimate way to do so, at all. Particularly when considering the purported problems that Vance identified.

Do I think it was a problem that big technology companies, working with the intelligence services, censored the presidential campaign of Donald Trump? Yes, he said at another point in the interview. Do I think its a problem that Pennsylvania changed its balloting rules in the middle of the election season in a way that even some courts in Pennsylvania have said was illegal? Yes, I think these were problems, George.

Lets deal with the second one first. Pennsylvania expanded voting access to allow more mail-in ballots before 2020, yes. But it did so in 2019, before the pandemic, with legislation passed by the Republican-majority legislature. Republicans tried to challenge those changes, arguing that they violated the state constitution, and a lower court in early 2022 ruled that the changes did violate the state constitution. But that ruling was overturned by the state Supreme Court.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in fact, had considered the question in November 2020. Its chief justice, Thomas Saylor, pointed out that even if the law were unconstitutional, there has been too much good-faith reliance, by the electorate, on the no-excuse mail-in voting regime created by [the law] to warrant judicial consideration of the extreme and untenable remedies proposed by appellees. In other words: People had already voted by the millions under the law, so even if it shouldnt have been in place, those legal votes should not be tossed out.

Which is what Vance argues: Because the rules were changed (over a year before the election), those voters (most of whom would probably have otherwise gone to vote against Trump in person) should have their opinions disregarded. Since, you know, that was a problem.

Vances other argument is no less contrived. Hes regurgitating a common right-wing claim that the government pressured social media companies to block online information. More accurately, hes exaggerating that common claim to suggest that Trumps campaign was targeted.

The short version of all of this goes as follows. Elon Musk, believing rhetoric that Twitter (now X) sought to crack down on right-wing accounts and viewpoints, stumbled into buying the company. He turned over internal material to writers motivated to similarly believe that originating rhetoric and, in December 2022, they began producing cherry-picked documents to suggest that the government told the social media site to silence right-wing voices. This included muffling coverage of Hunter Biden in October 2020, an event that has been overhauled in the rights collective memory to have been determinative in the election results. (It was not.)

The reality is that the government sought the help of social media companies in halting misinformation about voting and about the coronavirus pandemic. Given that Russian hackers had been the trigger for the wide release of stolen information in 2016 in an effort to swing that election, there were also conversations about being alert to potential foreign-interference efforts. When the Hunter Biden story broke only weeks before Election Day, it was (briefly) muted out of concern it was a similar effort.

Lawyers for X have acknowledged that Vances framing is incorrect. But consider what hes arguing: that because some X accounts were muted for spreading misinformation or (again, briefly) for sharing the Hunter Biden story, the results in several states that backed Biden should be rejected?

Whats more, that they should have been rejected for that reason in January 2021 nearly two years before these dubious or debunked allegations were even made?

Thats the giveaway, really. Vance isnt saying there were problems that necessitated reconsidering the 2020 election results, giving Trump a second term in office. Whats hes saying and what Trump has done all along is that he wishes Trump had a second term in office, which came down to the Jan. 6 counting of electoral votes, and so he offers some after-the-fact rationalizations for why that would have been okay.

This is intellectually dishonest and deeply problematic for democracy. If there were still any question, J.D. Vance made clear in this interview that he has willingly followed Trump into the very negative place he once warned about.

Read more from the original source:
Analysis | J.D. Vance would have upended democracy over right-wing nonsense - The Washington Post

John Dewey was one of the most important educational philosophers of the 20th century. His work has been cited in scholarly publications over 400,000 times. Deweys writings continue to influence discussions on a variety of subjects, including democratic education, which was the focus of Deweys famous 1916 book on the subject. In the following Q&A, Nicholas Tampio, a political science professor and editor of a forthcoming 2024 edition of Deweys Democracy and Education, explains why Deweys work remains relevant to this day.

I think it is time to revisit Deweys philosophy about the value of field trips, classroom experiments, music instruction and children playing together on playgrounds. This is especially true after the pandemic when children spent significantly more time in front of screens rather than having whole body experiences.

Deweys philosophy of education was that children learn by doing. Dewey argued that children learn from using their entire bodies in meaningful experiences. That is why, in his 1916 text, Democracy and Education, Dewey called for schools to be equipped with laboratories, shops, and gardens.

Dewey argued that planting seeds, measuring the relationship between Sun, soil, water and plant growth, and then tasting fresh peas made for a seamless transition between childhood curiosity and the scientific way of looking at things. Dewey also encouraged schools to create time for dramatizations, plays, and games.

In his 2014 book, An Education in Politics: The Origin and Evolution of No Child Left Behind, the political scientist Jesse H. Rhodes shows how business groups and certain civil rights groups advocated federal laws that required states to administer high-stakes tests. This focus on tested subjects means that public school students in places such as Texas have less time for arts education.

For Dewey, modern societies can use schools to impart democratic habits in young people from an early age. He argued that the intermingling in the school of youth of different races, differing religions, and unlike customs creates for all a new and broader environment. Dewey was writing as millions of European immigrants were arriving in the United States between 1900 and 1915. Dewey believed that schools could teach immigrants what it means to be a citizen and incorporate their experiences into American culture.

Deweys view of the schools remains relevant today. In the 2020-21 school year, more than a third of the countrys children attended schools where 75% of the student body is the same race or ethnicity hardly the ideal conditions for Deweys vision of democracy.

Dewey opposed racial, color, or other class prejudice. Segregated schools violate Deweys ideal of treating all students as possessing intrinsic worth and dignity. Dewey believed that democracy means that every human being, independent of the quantity or range of his personal endowment, has the right to equal opportunity with every other person for development of whatever gifts he has. Democratic schools, for Dewey, empower every child to develop their gifts in ways that benefit the community.

I would argue that the education system resembles the vision of modern testing pioneers like Edward Thorndike more than Deweys.

Dewey thought that standardized tests serve a small role in education. He believed that the childs own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Dewey maintained that teachers need to use student interest as the fuel to propel students to learn math, reading and the scientific method, and standardized tests serve mainly to help the teacher identify where each student can receive the most help. In his lifetime, Dewey opposed proponents of intelligence testing, such as Thorndike.

But the testing proponents seem to be winning. According to a 2023 Education Week survey of teachers, nearly 80% feel moderate or large amounts of pressure to have their students perform well on state-mandated standardized tests. According to one principal, Theres too much pressure put on these kids for testing, and theres too much testing.

Deweys vision of education is teachers nurturing each childs passions and not using tests to rank children. For many teachers, U.S. public schools are far from realizing that vision.

Deweys ideas were controversial during his lifetime. They remain so to this day.

In 2023, Richard Corcoran, the president of New College of Florida, criticized the Dewey school of thought for training students to become widget makers. According to Corcoran, Dewey thought that if we can teach (people) just enough skills to get on the assembly line and help us with this Industrial Revolution, everything will be great. Corcoran is right that Dewey thought that schools should teach children about industry, including with hands-on tasks. But Dewey opposed vocational education that slotted children from a young age into a career path.

I am utterly opposed, Dewey explained, to giving the power of social predestination, by means of narrow trade-training, to any group of fallible men no matter how well-intentioned they may be. Dewey thought that children could learn about history and economics from using machinery in schools. However, he opposed a two-tiered education system that denied working-class children a well-rounded education or that equated human flourishing with making widgets.

Educators and scholars such as Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier and Yong Zhao cite Dewey and apply his insights to current education debates. Those debates include topics such as the place of standardized testing in schools, the freedom of the classroom teacher and the need for schools to build trust with families and community members.

Zhao, for instance, argues that Dewey outlined a way to address education inequity that does not rely on closing gaps in test scores. Deweys idea, according to Zhao, is that all children should have a chance to express and cultivate individuality, learn through experiences and make the most of the opportunities of present life.

Dewey believed that democracy is a way of life. He also believed schools could teach that lesson to young people by allowing people in the school to have a meaningful say in the aims of education. For many people who read Dewey today, his call for democracy in education still resonates.

Go here to see the original:
Why John Dewey's vision for education and democracy still resonates today - The Conversation

A significant challenge to democracy and trust is emerging in 2024 globally and nationally. With 49% of the worlds population heading to the voting polls, its the biggest election year in history.

Here in Australia, the Northern Terririty, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland head to state-election booths, and Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have local government elections. The latter notably represents 52% of all Australian councils. Millions of people will be deciding what kind of future they want and who they can trust.

But escalating polarisation, mistrust, vigilantism, misinformation and digital manipulation is a dangerous melting pot that threatens democracy. As mayor of SAs most populated local council, I have witnessed first-hand how these melting pots seek to destabilise and pervert communities, electorates and commerce.

The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer Report,A collision of trust, innovation, and politics, shows that 63% of government leaders are not trusted to tell the truth and are rated as purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.

This has significant implications when people are going to the polling booths. Essentially, 2024 will be a global referendum on trust.

Our democratic practices need to keep up with the speed of AI, social media algorithms, and disruptive bots. And even speaking for myself, navigating cyber security is a real challenge.

The juncture of truth, facts & trust

Over the past decade, truth has been a casualty of discourse and now, in a post-truth world, the bold and the brazen are seemingly allergic to facts.

As Maria Ressa Noble Peace Laureate and global democracy advocate, said:

If you dont have facts, you cant have truth. Without truth, you cant have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We cannot attempt to solve any problem. You cant have democracy if you dont have integrity of facts.

Without facts, fear is the fuel that divides and polarises voters. But there are hopeful divides emerging. People who can discern fact from fiction; empathy and kindness from cruelty and greed and the digitally literate and illiterate.

Moises Naim in his book The Revenge of Power How Autocrats are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century sums up the three dangers of our times as being polarisation, populism and post-truth.

The destructive power and explosion of social media bots, fake news and deep fake identities disrupting democracy and fuelling polarisation is tacit. The Edelman Barometer Report further found that 64% of Australians consider governments as lacking competence in regulating these kinds of emerging technologies.

The lack of trust in government on this front puts democracy further at risk because innovation is vital for a sustainable and flourishing future. Taking this a step further, there is evidence that resistance to innovation is political.

In Australia, this divide sits at 37% on the right and 14% on the left. This is second only to the US in exhibiting greater resistance to innovation from the right to the left. Culture and identity politics are on the ballot paper.

It was predicted in the 2023 Edelman Trust Report that Australia will become further polarised due to forces weakening our social fabric and the creation of increased divisions. This certainly played out in the Voice to Parliament referendum.

This clearly demonstrates the fragility of our shared identity real and perceived unfairness in our systems. It spotlights a lack of confidence in what might lie ahead economically, which leads to further pessimism and low national self-esteem.

In his inaugural presidential address, Abraham Lincoln called on our better angels from the graves of patriots and history to unite a nation. Maybe we should take some advice from the past and call upon all of those who gave their all to build up trust in democracy and who must be at risk of turning in their graves this year.

If the platforms on which information is being shared cant be trusted, the voices who are seeking election cant be trusted. Nor can regulatory bodies be trusted by default to keep up with technologies.

Responding to the challenge

How we build trust and hope into our institutional responses to fear, fake news and straight-out lies is far more than a communication or marketing challenge.

It runs deep into the bedrock of what it means to be human. We need to feel connected and heard; that we belong and that we count.

The challenge for all elected members is how to keep the system levers and conversations buoyant with civility and compassion. It means building safe places for those conversations to take place and holding each other to account for the decisions made.

And it means ensuring the resources and infrastructure are in place to bring the outcomes as intended. Keeping a tone of respect is central.

Inoculating against othering is critical in strengthening democracy. Othering can be a real challenge on the days when disruptions and distractions seek to derail and threaten. This has been witnessed personally at state and local levels to undermine confidence.

I have had my share of death threats, hacks, clones, electoral corruption and disruption. The scale of my experience, whilst localised, is a tiny window into what the world has seen and will further witness in elections and democracy this year.

We must rigorously encourage fact-checking at every data point and communicate what is and isnt acceptable with respect. Holding up truth to scrutiny is essential to confront polarisation at all levels.

Community engagement and civil discourse are booster shots for democracy. Similarly as are keeping the facts in front of people, showing up with values of empathy, fairness and hearing all voices. We must encourage the quieter to contribute not just the most vocal.

We need to learn how to disagree, build arguments and persuade constructively.

Two-time world champion debater Bo Seo, at the 2023 Asian Pacific Cities Summit shared that to win a debate and be heard, start by listening first to uncover what is at the root of your opponents argument. We must foster respectful debating skills in our educational institutions and boardrooms.

We also need truth in political advertising laws. Recent research by The Australian Institute (Overwhelming support for truth in political advertising laws following the referendum) found 9 out of 10 Australians would support this democratic innovation.

How it pans out

One of the tests of 2024 will not only be the results of all the elections but also the number of people who actually go out to vote. The global problem is how to shake inertia to action where voting is not compulsory.

Other countries could learn from Australias voting laws. Former prime minister Julia Gillard has been a staunch advocate of compulsory voting because it has helped Australia remain out of the hands of small highly motivated minorities.

By the end of 2024 we will know how well we have done in keeping the democracy scales balanced, and if voters have been enabled by our institutions, governments, and technologies to find the truths, stay in relationship with different points of view and be able to resist three-word slogans.

Democracy and trust are facing watershed times. How it pans out is yet to be decided.

READ MORE:

Can tackling misinformation strengthen cohesion and contribute to a national defence?

See the original post here:
Democracy & trust face a global tipping point in 2024 - The Mandarin

President Biden greets staff and patrons at Regal Lounge, a Men's Barber & Spa, in Columbia, S.C., before speaking at a political event in the area on Jan. 27. Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

President Biden greets staff and patrons at Regal Lounge, a Men's Barber & Spa, in Columbia, S.C., before speaking at a political event in the area on Jan. 27.

Preserving democracy tops the list of issues for voters in this election year, but not for Republicans, who are most concerned with immigration, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.

For Democrats, they said preserving democracy is top of mind for them when thinking about voting in this November's election, followed by inflation. For independents, it was preserving democracy, followed by immigration and inflation. After immigration for Republicans, it was inflation, and nothing else came close.

The results explain the evident divide when it comes to what the candidates are campaigning on.

Former President Donald Trump routinely talks about the threat from immigration, often in nativist and xenophobic ways. Immigration was fundamental to his initial political rise in 2015, and there's a clear split in the survey on Americans' mentality toward it. A majority said the country's openness to people from all over the world is essential to what it means to be American. But nearly three-quarters of Republicans said being too open risks America's identity.

President Biden and Democrats see Trump as that very threat to democracy given his increasingly pro-authoritarian rhetoric on the campaign trail. That follows the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol carried by Trump supporters after Trump tried to remain in office by spreading lies about the American voting system.

But nine months from Election Day and with the GOP primary continuing both men, if they are the nominees, face challenges. Biden is not well-liked and is struggling to reassemble his winning coalition from 2020. He's lagging with independents, younger voters and nonwhites. And he's facing a skeptical electorate when it comes to his handling of the economy and immigration in addition to persistent concerns about his age.

Trump, who is not much younger, is also contending with the fact that most Americans continue to say they don't like him very much, either. He struggles particularly with women and suburban voters and both groups would vote more heavily for Biden if Trump is convicted of a crime, the survey found.

If Trump is convicted as a result of the dozens of charges against him, Biden goes from a 1-point lead in the poll a statistical tie to a wider 6-point lead. Contributing to that are 9-point swings in Biden's favor with both women and suburban voters, as well as a 6-point decline for Trump with independents and a 5-point drop with Republicans.

As a panel of federal judges unanimously decided Tuesday, two-thirds of respondents don't think Trump should have immunity from criminal prosecution for things he did as president and almost half of respondents continue to say they already think he has done something illegal. Three-quarters said he has at least done something wrong.

At the same time, more than two-thirds of Republicans said Trump should have immunity from criminal prosecution.

Despite Trump's vulnerabilities, 93% of Republicans said they would vote for Trump over Biden, as opposed to just 78% who said they would vote for former Trump U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley over Biden (15% said they're unsure or don't know how they would vote).

Because Republicans who otherwise support Trump withheld support for Haley in the survey, Haley is in a statistical tie just like Trump.

Plus, more Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they were concerned that Haley is "too extreme" to win in a general election than those who said they were concerned about Trump being too extreme.

Haley has made her electability against Biden a principal argument in her case against Trump, but Republicans aren't buying it. It just shows the stronghold Trump has on GOP voters. If Republicans were fully with her in the survey as they likely would be if she won the primary she'd certainly be leading Biden in this theoretical match-up, because she significantly cuts into Biden's lead with suburban voters and wins independents by double-digits.

Trump could have real problems in a general election, as general-election voters view him very differently than Republicans alone.

But Biden's not in a great position, either. His job approval remains low (40%) as does his handling of the economy (41%) and, especially, immigration.

Only 29% of respondents said they approve of how Biden is handling immigration, and Republicans hold a 12-point advantage on the question of which party Americans think would do a better job when it comes to dealing with the issue.

It's not too surprising then to see why some Republicans, especially Trump, aren't willing to go along with a congressional border deal that was negotiated by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

"Let me tell you, I'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval rating," Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, told CNN last month. "I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man's dismal approval ratings. I'm not going to do it. Why would I?"

When Trump came out against it, you might say he built a border wall of GOP opposition.

As far as what respondents think should be the top immigration priority, they said they want border security increased (41%), followed by allowing immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children (also known as DREAMers) to have a path to legalization (28%), taking in refugees trying to escape war and violence (15%) and increasing deportations of immigrants in the country illegally (14%).

Republican respondents overwhelmingly said the top priority should be border security (60%) followed by increasing deportations (22%). But the plurality of Democrats think giving DREAMers a path to legalization should be top (44%), followed by taking in refugees (25%).

Biden is underperforming with lots of key groups.

He won independents in 2020, according to exit polls, but loses them in this survey by 8 points to Trump. Biden won women by 15 points in 2020, but only leads by 4 with them in this poll.

Plus, just 57% of Black voters, 38% of Latinos and only 30% of those 18 to 29 approve of the job he's doing, the lowest of any age bracket. In 2020, Biden won almost 9 in 10 Black voters, two-thirds of Latinos and roughly 60% of young voters.

When it comes to his handling of immigration, Latinos give Biden an abysmal 27% approval.

To be clear, whether respondents say they approve of Biden's handling of a given issue is not necessarily an indication of how they would vote in the end. But the numbers do give signals about where Biden is most vulnerable.

Suburban voters are buoying Biden, as he leads Trump by 16 points with them. Trump has been and continues to be toxic with the group.

Despite younger voters disapproving of the job Biden is doing by big margins, Gen Z/Millennials provide Biden with the largest lead of the generational groups against Trump 7 points.

Biden also continues to perform well with older voters. He's up 6 with the Silent/Greatest Generation and up 2 with Baby Boomers. Those results are notable, because older voters have traditionally been strong GOP voters. Trump won those 65 and older by 5 points in 2020.

The survey of 1,582 adults and 1,441 registered voters was conducted from Jan. 29 through Feb. 1 by the Marist Poll via cell phone and landline using live interviewers, by text and online and in both English and Spanish. When all adults are mentioned, the survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points.

When voters are mentioned, results have a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points. There are also 601 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents included in the survey. Results noting these groups specifically have a +/- 5.5 percentage-point margin of error.

The rest is here:
Here's what matters to voters and what could change their minds if it's Biden-Trump - NPR