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What motivated voters most during the 2016 election is still a highly debated topic. The 2016 American National Election Study, released last week, provides insightinto the factors that propelled Donald Trump to victory.

Trump supporters have often been depicted as racist, poor white Americans. But are they actually racist? Are they economically anxious?

This year the American National Election Study included 1,200 participants. The publicly funded study has been conducted for each electionsince 1948 and offers historical perspective. The new study examined key factors involved in the 2016 election.

The Washington Post analyzedthree motivationsfor voters based onthe study: income, authoritarianism and racial attitudes. Here is a recap:

How did voters income affect their decisions?

Traditionally, wealthier voters tend to vote for the Republican candidate whilelow-income voters lean toward the Democratic candidate.

That was not the case for the most recent election, however.

Was authoritarianism much at play?

The Washington Post reported:

Many commentators and social scientists wrote about how much about authoritarianism influenced voters. Authoritarianism, as used by political scientists, isnt the same as fascism; its a psychological disposition in which voters have an aversion to social change and threats to social order. Since respondents might not want to say they fear chaos or are drawn to strong leadership, this disposition is measured by asking voters about the right way to rear children.

The idea is that voters anxious about change and disorder will say its best to encourage children to follow rules. For instance, respondents are asked whether its better when children are considerate (likely more liberal) or well-behaved (likely more authoritarian), or whether they should be self-reliant (likely more liberal) or obedient (likely more authoritarian).

According to the data, authoritarianism did not play a major role for GOP voters in this past election cycle. In fact, Republicanswere slightly less attracted bythe idea of authoritarianism than they had beenin previous elections.

What effect did race have?

The major narrativesurroundingNovembers historic election focused on voters racial attitudes, and for good reason. Trump supporters were relentlessly depicted as racists, and the study confirmed that suspicion.

Since 1988, weve never seen such a clear correspondence between vote choice and racial perceptions, Thomas Wood wrote in his Washington Postanalysis. The biggest movement was among those who voted for the Democrat, who were far less likely to agree with attitudes coded as more racially biased.

The Post concluded, Racial attitudes made a bigger difference in electing Trump than authoritarianism.

The current American National Election Study ultimately served as proof of what many left-wingers have been saying all along.

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Liberals were right: Racism played a larger role in Trump's win than income and authoritarianism - Salon

In order to win a war any war you need to have a realistic analysis of your enemys aims, his strengths and weaknesses, your real strengths and weaknesses, and clarity on your ultimate goals in prosecuting the war. The truth is neither the Indian state nor its detractors in the national media, has thought this through.

The war we are losing is the information war, as the outrage over the video of a Kashmiri tied to an army jeep shows. If anything, the video shows that army officers are able to use innovative tactics to prevent violence and deaths, but the mainstream narrative is about the army using human shields when this is the perennial tactic used by stone-pelters in the Valley. What is the norm among stone-pelters is now shown as the armys failure in one instance of a change of tactics.

We are not losing the real war with jihadi militants and their stone-throwing mobs. The war we are losing is the one launched by so-called liberals who think the army is fair game in their fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

It is thus easy for Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writing in The Indian Express, to suggest that India is failing with its Kashmir policy, concluding: We are looking at a situation where our strategy of containment by force has failed, our political instruments are hollow, and there is a deepening death wish in the state. Kashmir is looking at an abyss. Who lost the plot this time around?

Similar conclusions have been reached by many other liberals. One is tempted to say that it is the liberals who have lost the plot, for they are training their guns on our army and the BJP, when they should be more concerned about the jihadi gains in the Valley. If people committed to anarchy and stone-pelting win, will liberals gain or lose?

Mehtas article should be an eye-opener to everybody, for it raises the right questions. But there are no answers beyond the usual platitudes that both local politicians and Delhi have been delegitimised in the Valley, that there is a trust gap between the Valleys Kashmiris and the rest of India, and that ultimately Kashmir cannot be held down by force. We have not been able to sell the India story.

This analysis seems to carry the ring of truth, but is substantially wrong. The wrong assumptions it makes are the following.

First, they assume that there is a general problem the state has with India. Is that so? Neither Jammu nor Ladakh have the same problem, even though these regions have been even more discriminated against than Kashmir Valley. And even inside the Valley, the trust deficit is with that chunk of Muslims who have been radicalised over the last two decades, both due to global developments and domestic. By ethnically cleansing the valley of Pandits, Pakistan has essentially destroyed the earlier syncretism of the Valley, making it easier to Islamise a large segment of the youth.

Can any progress be possible if this trend is not reversed, and Kashmiris learn to rediscover their diversity? There can be no solution to the Valleys alienation without the rediscovery of its original diversity. That should be goal one for the Indian state, and the liberals who claim to stand for these values should be fighting for this as a prerequisite to any political dialogue. Giving the Valley concessions now is like rewarding bad behaviour.

How can there be a political dialogue by excluding a large chunk of the population? Any dialogue has to make the Pandits a party to it, but no liberal is willing to back this idea. With what temerity can they call themselves liberals?

Second, the legitimacy of a state stems primarily from its ability to enforce the rule of law, which, in turn, depends on ensuring that its writ runs over the geographical area that it claims to control. This means Indian law must prevail in the state before we can start a realistic dialogue with all stakeholders in J&K. If this means use of force, we cannot run away from the idea.

If liberals truly want to establish the rule of law in J&K, they must first back the states decision to claw back control of law and order from jihadi elements. As long as this does not happen, what is the chance that the state police which has already been rendered hors de combat by jihadi intimidation of their families can ever play a role in restoring order? When policemen are being coerced to resign by violent elements, and the state authorities think asking policemen not to visit their homes to avoid intimidation is the solution, what are we talking about?

The aims of the Pakistan-backed jihadis and their stone-pelting comrades are clear: target the laws guardians so that they get a free run all over. How will the army even defend the border if there is a hostile population behind it? Once this happens, the dismemberment of India is only a matter of time. The liberals are not doing Indias cause any good by pretending that liberal values must prevail before the state manages to regain lost power. This is priority. It is worth recalling that Punjab could not have returned to normalcy without first restoring a semblance of the authority of the state, which is what KPS Gill did with his unorthodox methods.

If todays faux liberals had their way, India would have stared at an abyss in Punjab even before J&K. So, yes, let us not shy away from it. We can dialogue with the separatists till the cows come home, but the army and security forces must be given total support to quell the violence by any means possible before that. AFSPA must be the norm till order is restored, for the armed forces whether the military or the paramilitary - cannot fight with their arms tied behind their backs.

Third, the only logic of Kashmiri separatism is Islamic bigotry and Partition II. This is where liberals, even those who think the BJP is the worst thing to happen to India, are seriously underestimating the long-term damage they are doing to the ideas of India. If the Valley is lost due to liberal and state stupidity, Indias second partition on religious lines will be only one leap away. While the BJP is unlikely to let this happen during its watch, do the liberals even understand they are the ones causing this through their blind BJP-hatred?

Mark my words, if Kashmir is lost to Islamic militancy, there is no way India will not turn a Hindu rashtra. A win for Pakistan and jihadis in elements will prove to the ordinary Hindu that if Muslims can keep breaking away, why should only Hindus carry the can for secularism? Let India be a Hindu state. The BJP, or a successor party, will become stronger than ever, but this time it would truly become a 100 per cent Hindu majoritarian party. India will indeed become a Hindu Pakistan. The Idea of Pakistan will win, and it would be because the liberals were blinded by hatred for the BJP.

It is also worth considering the real reason why the Valleys militancy seems worse than before and here too liberals must share the blame. In 2014, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in J&K in terms of vote share. This scared the separatists so much that when the state assembly elections came, they backed the PDP to the hilt in the valley since the National Conference had lost favour. This is why they did not do anything to prevent that ballot exercise.

But, to their surprise, the BJP took control of Jammu and Jammu demanded a share of power. The liberals, instead of seeing the PDP-BJP alliance as a true democratic result and an attempt to heal the regional divide, kept up its shrill cry, trying to make the BJPs claim to power sharing as illegitimate. This suited their secular politics in Delhi, but it made things impossible for the PDP to play its political role in bringing the Valley to the mainstream, even though the BJP was fully committed to providing development resources to the state, the whole state and not just the Valley.

The secular parties and the liberals, instead of backing true power-sharing, went in the other direction claiming that the anger of the Kashmiris was the result of the BJPs rise to power, and Indias failure to honour its commitment of greater autonomy to the people made long ago. This attitude is spelt out by P Chidambaram, who did nothing about giving J&K greater autonomy when his party was in power, but now pretends that this is something that cropped up after the BJP came to power in the state.

The problem is not about granting more autonomy to states, including J&K, but in believing that is what will keep Kashmiris tied to the India project, as Mehta calls it. The Kashmir project, whether under the Abdullahs or other regional parties, has always been about Muslim majoritarianism, if not Islamism. It is a tragedy that the liberals who oppose Hindu majoritarian thinking in Delhi end up justifying Muslim majoritarianism in Srinagar. Their two-faced liberalism is essentially dhimmitude in the face of militant Muslim assertions in the Valley. You cant talk of the India project as separate from the Kashmir project. The latter has to start aligning with the ideas of India and pluralism as much as India needs to be mindful of the aspirations of all of J&K, including its Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and other minorities.

What is the way out? The progression of strategy must be along the following lines: first, allow the armed forces to take full geographical control of the valley and create the conditions for the police and politicians to do their jobs or speak freely; next, start the political process of granting all states (and not only J&K) more economic and political autonomy; third, launch a propaganda war for syncretism and pluralism in J&K, and finally change the constitution to make J&K a full part of the Indian Union, where Indians can also be allowed to settle and buy land in the state just as the reverse is now possible; fifth, take the covert war to Pakistan and focus on its dismemberment unless that rogue state gives up terrorism as state policy.

It is quite likely that Pakistani aggression this time is being covertly fuelled by China, and so our China diplomacy needs to be convincing. The deal India can offer China is that it will not question the status of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, even though it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, only as long as it forces its client state to accept the line of control as the true international border that cannot be crossed by Pakistani forces of jihadi militants.

If needed, India should be willing to share intelligence on jihadis targeting Chinas western province, where the Uighurs are restive. China should be as worried about Islamist militancy in the western state as anyone else, and we should have some leverage here.

It is going to be a hard and bitterly-fought war, but this is the strategy that must drive us. Unfortunately, our liberals appear unwilling to help us win this war. They must truly introspect, but this does not seem to be forthcoming.

If India ever loses the Valley, it will be because the liberals have enabled this.

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India's Faux 'Liberals' Are Damaging Our Army's Efforts To Douse J&K Fire - Swarajya

NewsBusters (blog)

Zakaria Slams Liberals for 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,' Defends Syria Airstrikes NewsBusters (blog) On Sunday's Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, host Zakaria began his show by admonishing liberals for reflexively opposing anything President Donald Trump does -- calling it "Trump Derangement Syndrome" -- as he responded to those who have attacked the ... Fareed Zakaria Warns Liberals to Avoid Trump Derangement ...Townhall Liberals: Avoid Trump Derangement SyndromeCNN all 14 news articles »

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Zakaria Slams Liberals for 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,' Defends Syria Airstrikes - NewsBusters (blog)

They're pro-science, pro-empiricism guardians of truth and facts in an age of Lyin' Donald, you'll recall, except when they're not. Because 'Literally Hitler' and his band of deplorables deserve it, or whatever. A Democratic pollster posted a tweet on Easter Sunday, comparing and contrasting the supposedchurchgoing records of President Obama and President Trump -- neither of whom is, shall we say, particularlyrenowned for his overt religiosity. It's racked up tens of thousands of retweets and likes, with screenshots and similar memes buzzing around Facebook and Instagram. Obama was a God-fearing Christian, unlike that pagan Trump; these so-called Christian Republican voters are such hypocrites! Problem: It's an inaccurate tweet. But hey,spreading fake news that affirms your partisan biases feels good. And who can resist the sweet, sweet nectar of lots of retweets and new followers?

Conservatives and some mainstream and liberal media figuresswiftly debunked the premise of the tweet. Oops:

The original tweeter has been defending himself and refusing to delete the false post, uncorking a slew of justifications, most of which are some variation of "fake but accurate" or "it's Trump's fault." He also claimed that his facts werecorrect at the time that he fired off the tweet because Trump hadn't gone to church yet, or something. But the premise of the framing was that Obama was a faithful Easter churchgoer, unlike that heathen Trump. Fun fact:Theimage embedded at the top of this postis of Trump...arriving at church on Easter. In fairness, this allcould have started as an honest, hasty mistake,but once it became clear that the message was flat-out wrong, the obviouslycorrect move wasto take it down, not concoct desperateex post facto rationalizations. To err is to be human, butto allow arrogance and expedience to perpetuate the propagation of a knownfalsehood is a deliberate act of dishonesty (a lesson thatthis president would be wiseto heed). And hey, we're all human. Even certainDemocratic pollsters:

See? Deleting content that makes you look silly in retrospect isn't so hard, is it?

Read more here:
Fake News: Liberals Can't Stop Sharing This False Meme About Trump, Obama, and Church - Townhall

Organized labor and its allies in the Democratic Party are bracing for a major hit to union power now that Justice Neil Gorsuch has a seat on the Supreme Court, fearing that he will tip the balance of the court toward overturning key legal precedents that benefit labor.

"This justice is poised to cast the fifth vote to make it next to impossible for public-sector labor unions to organize," said Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former secretary of labor, in a speech Tuesday to the United Steelworkers union.

The two main cases on the court's horizon that unions are worried about are Yohn v. California Teachers Association and Janus v. AFSCME. Both could overturn a 1979 precedent called Abood that said public-sector workers could be forced to join a union or support one financially as a condition of employment.

Such requirements called "security clauses" in union parlance are a common feature of public-sector union contracts. They are a key source of the unions' strength since they boost both membership and dues revenue.

Terry Pell, executive director of the Center for Individual Rights, a legal nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in Yohn, believes they have a good chance of reaching the Supreme Court later this year.

"We are arguing that we are raising concerns that can only be answered by the Supreme Court," Pell told the Washington Examiner. They did it once before in a case the Supreme Court heard last year called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

Friedrichs' argued that the state's security clause violated the teachers' rights because it forced them to subsidize the union's political activities even when they disagree with the labor group's agenda.

A majority of the justices appeared to be on the verge of overturning Abood, but Justice Antonin Scalia's death just one month after oral arguments meant that they deadlocked 4-4. That meant that the lower court opinion upholding Abood stood.

"But for the death of Justice Scalia that case would already be decided," Perez said.

Because the Supreme Court technically never reached a judgment on the issue, nothing prevents it from taking up the same question again.

"We are currently before the same district court judge we were in the Friedrichs case," Pell said. The issue at question in Yohn is basically the same as in the prior case, so Pell expects a similar ruling that will enable the case to reach Supreme Court.

The Janus v. AFSCME case, which has been in the 7th Court of Appeals, raises similar issues. The National Right to Work Foundation and the Liberty Justice Center, two free-market nonprofit groups, filed the case on behalf of two Illinois health department employees.

"We're at the point now where the next step is to file for cert with the Supreme Court," said foundation spokesman Pat Semmens, referring to the procedure for asking the justices to take up their case.

Unions who believe they caught a break when the court split on Friedrichs are eyeing both cases nervously. They were cited in a resolution passed by NYSUT, a 6000,000-member federation of New York teachers and school employees, after Gorsuch was confirmed April 10.

The resolution warned that the cases could tip the court toward "invalidat[ing] of the collection of fair share fees by public-sector unions." That would "deliver a crippling blow to the labor movement and to public-sector unions in particular."

A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union told the Washington Post Friday that the union had trimmed its budget by as much as 30 percent this year in expectation that it soon will face a much tougher organizing climate.

"These particular budget cuts are our way of enacting financial efficiencies to deal with the realities posed by extremist right-wing labor policy in all branches of the federal government," Sahar Wali told the Post.

SEIU in particular has reason to be worried, as it has a suffered series of defeats at the court in recent years.

In 2014's Harris v. Quinn, the court ruled 5-4 that state-funded Illinois home healthcare workers were not state employees eligible for unionization. That was a blow to the SEIU, which represented them.

In 2012's Knox v. SEIU, a 7-2 majority ruled that the union could not force members to pay a special assessment fee the union imposed on the workers without giving them the opportunity to opt out first. SEIU had made the assessment to raise funds to defeat state ballot initiatives it opposed.

Pell cautioned that it is not clear how Gorsuch, though a conservative, would vote on labor issues since he has little record on the subject. "It's never a good idea to take any [Supreme Court] vote for granted."

Semmens echoed that assessment, saying, "The only thing we know for certain is that he will be the deciding vote."

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Gorsuch will tip Supreme Court on key labor issue, liberals fear - Washington Examiner