Being a Republican in Congress is a lot easier than being a Democrat. That’s because there are very few things that Republicans have or want to do. Most Democrats have full plates in front of them as they want to reform our society so that government provides a strong and secure safety net for all of us, particularly those most at risk. If we reach a point of gridlock, of stalemate, it is the right that wins, because if nothing happens, that is exactly what they want.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection and other rebellious acts from the right, there is increasing talk of a new American civil war. What shape it might take is open to all kinds of interpretation. It certainly would not be like America’s first civil war, or even a feared possible upcoming war between Russia and Ukraine.

That does not mean there would not be violence. The January 6 insurrection resulted in the deaths of five individuals and the injuring of hundreds. The Right certainly does not hesitate to use threats of violence against those with whom they merely disagree.

For example, Fox News anchor Jesse Watters recently told a group of conservatives to “ambush” Dr. Anthony Fauci with questions and “go in for kill shot.” Fox News has not reprimanded Watters; in fact, they have not said a word about his using their platform to threaten to kill someone. Fox did the same things with correspondent Lara Logan who compared Fauci to the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele (also included in the clip below).

As we approach the end of 2021, the Washington Post reports “Inside the nonstop pressure campaign by Trump allies to get election officials to revisit the 2020 vote.” The Big Lie continues more than thirteen months after the 2020 safe, secure and democratic elections.

The fallout has spread from the six states where Trump sought to overturn the outcome in 2020 to deep-red places such as Idaho, where officials recently hand-recounted ballots in three counties to refute claims of vote-flipping, and Oklahoma, where state officials commissioned an investigation to counter allegations that voting machines were hacked.

The important point in the article is that the Trumpsters are continuing their efforts to intimidate Republican-controlled state legislatures to undo the past and change the future so that free and fair elections become something of the past.

A “civil war” could include numerous other acts of aggression by the right including the intimidation of teachers, vigilante forces, Congressional action to not raise the debt limit and not fund necessary programs that are the framework of our social and economic safety net.

COVID has already played a key role in dividing the nation and threatens to do so for some time to come. Samuel Goldman in The Week suggests:

I’m not the first to compare the way of thinking about the pandemic still dominant in official statements to the military disasters of the last two decades. My colleague Noah Millman and the journalist Daniel McCarthy have both noted parallels between the interminable conflicts that followed 9/11 and the “war” on COVID. “Like the old Afghan government,” Millman wrote, “those in charge of public health have little practical ability to shape events. But they speak as if they are sovereign and in control.”

It is hard to imagine what aggressive actions those on the Left may take. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, extremists far to the left of the Democratic Party engaged in bombing attacks on both public and private buildings. But there was very little coordinated about that and as it became apparent that the bombings were counter-productive, the bombings essentially ended.

Regrettably, there is very little that the Right needs to do now to win a “civil war.” The current stalemate allows those on the Right to generally get their way.

Progressive legislation will not pass. The right to safe and legal abortions will be ended in most states when Roe v. Wade is overturned, elections will be rigged to favor far-right Republicans, COVID and other infectious diseases will continue to run rampant, gun-control measures will not be passed, climate change legislation will stall and those who do not agree with those on the Right will live in fear of violence.

The only real way that progressives and others can prevent an escalated “civil war” is by winning big in elections and having protections against Republican electoral manipulation. This means that the U.S. Senate is going to have to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to maximize the chances of free and fair elections. Additionally, Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to elevate the popularity of Joe Biden and improve their chances of winning 2022 Congressional races. Perhaps a backlash to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade would help, but that seems unlikely.

The stakes are truly high for progressives; we need to do all that we legally and non-violently can do.

The post Why A “Civil War” Would Be So Hard for Progressives to “Win” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There once was a time when most Americans revered the Constitution. The charter outlined how we mortals  structured our government so that reason and fairness were two of the guiding principles. But thanks to Donald Trump and the current generation of Republicans, our governmental structure no longer has clear definition. The rules governing what we can do are suddenly whimsical and chaotic. Where there used to be rhyme and reason, now we have fragmentation and dysfunction. Republican presidents, legislatures and judges have replaced the discretion with how we interpret the Constitution with blatant self-interest.

The reason is that Trump and his followers have little respect for preserving and strengthening the institutions and procedures that for so long have protected our democracy. If the rules do not provide most Republicans with unfair advantages, they rebel against the rules and try to change them, throwing caution to the wind.

The U.S. Constitution outlines a few basic principles that control how government in America is supposed to work. Just for quick review, here are the most fundamental of these.

1. Checks and balances. Each level of government has three branches: (a) executive, (b) legislative, and (c) judicial.
2. Levels of government. We have our national government, the federal government, the fifty states, and tens of thousands of local governments. Presumably the states are the most powerful because they came first. But the federal government has certain clear rights over the states, such as control of interstate commerce or the power to print money and control banking.

Local governments are closest to we the people and that gives the localities certain inherent advantages. For instance, public schools are controlled by local communities. Yet, the states give charters to local governments including school districts and thus the states can dictate a great deal about how we live, work and play.

Historically, the constitution has helped bring order to how our legislators pass laws and executives enforce the laws. But deciding who makes which rules can be extremely complicated. For two centuries, our constitution was helped by a strong measure of common sense among the electorate. An informed electorate with belief in the Constitution helped in determining which branches of government, or which levels of government (federal, state, or local) would make which decisions, and what would be the parameters of those choices.

Now we are finding that all levels and entities of government are wildly scrambling to advance their own power, regardless of the principles of the Constitution or historical precedent. In the world of the truly absurd, we currently find that the governor of Florida (Ron DeSantis) is telling public school districts that they cannot mandate students and teachers to wear masks to school to provide more protection from COVID-19. This is the kind of problem that historically has been solved by agreements largely forged through precedent and a commitment to promoting the common good. A school board would have control over the day-to-day operations of the school, and currently almost all local boards in the United States want to provide as much safety as possible for students, teachers, administrators and other staff.

But Republicans like DeSantis want to maximize the power of their offices and positions, showing little regard for America’s historical relationships branches and levels of government. Our system is now confusing, unpredictable, arbitrary, and capricious.

The answers to the “Who Decides” questions are not easy. The Trump era can show us how far off any beaten path we can go with these questions. It is enough to make your head spin. But that sort of dizziness has been avoided for most of the lifespan of our country because there were sound rules in our Constitution, and behavioral norms kept anyone from pulling DeSantis tricks.

Federalism was a brilliant idea conceived by our founders. It helps us determine publicly beneficial answers to a myriad of questions about “Who Decides.” But it is based on good will among citizens of different political persuasions. We will never recover from the damage of Donald Trump and his legions until they recognize the importance of governing by the rules that have provided us with a large measure of stability for most of the past two and a half centuries. Regrettably, the record of politicians gone wild in acknowledging their mistakes and reinstating the basic principles of governance is not good.

Progressives will need to reach out to others to try to forge relations built on reason and concern for the common good.

The post Republicans are destroying our founders’ Federalism appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Automatically believing Brett Kavanaugh and invalidating the account of Christine Blasey-Ford. Taking aim at the protection of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Ideas like this are appalling to many progressives, people who pride themselves in taking a rational approach to problem-solving.

But those of us who are appalled by these Republican ideas have to keep in mind a couple of things:

1. We are hardly a majority. Just this morning, a Wall Street Journal / NBC poll reveals that Donald Trump’s approval rating has jumped to 47%. For most of his term, he has lingered below 40%.
2. The Republican views will not magically go away. While I have advocated a possible solution being that schools must focus much more on critical thinking and empathy rather than test scores, that idea is somewhat hollow because so many teachers have Republican leanings (even if they below to unions) and they have very different ideas of critical thinking and empathy.
3. Even if progressives are more interested in learning about how Republicans think than vice-versa, we still are largely at a loss.

In an effort to advance the progressives’ understanding of conservatives to the point where we can possibly move the needle towards our version of critical thinking, etc., Occasional Planet is commissioning a series for public opinion surveys. Each one will hopefully give us greater understanding and also raise a new level of questions. We’ll keep pursuing.

On Thursday, October 18, we sent a survey to a random selection of 239 Americans. This has some statistical significance, obviously not as much as a survey of more than 1,000 respondents. You can see the entirety of the results by clicking here.

In this and coming posts, we will analyze findings and raise new questions. We will try not to overload readers with data; we too belong to the “short attention data club.”

One of the questions that we asked was, “Who do you trust most to protect your interests?” The choices were (a) The federal government, (b) My state government and (c) My local government.

Here are the results:

51% said their local government

29% said their state government

20% said the federal government

Just to clarify, the party breakdown of the survey sample was:

13% Strong Republican

17% Moderate Republican

28% Independent

14% Moderate Democrat

19% Strong Democrat

So, the sample leaned slightly more Democrat than Republican.

But here is our “key finding” and question of the day:

Of those who most trusted the federal government, 50% were strong Republicans while only 26% were strong Democrats.

We normally associate strong Democrats (progressives) with support of the federal government. After all, the New Deal, Great Society and most of the other fabric of the social and economic safety net comes from the federal government. So, why is it that in our survey, there is greater trust in the federal government from strong Republicans than strong Democrats.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us by clicking here.

The post Looking for insights into (er, questions about) the Republican Brain appeared first on Occasional Planet.

How did it happen? Susan Collins, a seemingly sensitive person who is pro-choice on abortion rights, disses Christine Blasey-Ford’s a contention that she was sexually abused by Brett Kavanaugh. Is Collins (a) insensitive to the history of women not being believed when men say something contrary, (b) simply a poor judge of character (who could not see Kavanaugh as a bully), or (c) just a Republican who has a very different way of looking at life from the way others do?

Not too many years ago, there was a great deal written about the Republican Brain. In fact, Chris Mooney, now a Washington Post reporter, wrote a book in 2012 called The Republican Brain. Six years earlier, he wrote a book called The Republican War on Science.

It’s not as if in recent times the importance of party affiliation has been ignored. More and more commentators are saying that political party reflects the greatest fissures in our society – more so than gender, race, educational levels, economic levels, or anything else. It’s my team vs. your team. All that matters is winning. In the case of Republicans, that may be at all costs; Democrats may have a few reservations about a cut-throat victory.

There are calls for bi-partisanship, but they are generally at the level of kumbaya. Dems and Repubs can share a softball diamond (actually the baseball field at Nationals Park) and play ball without dirty plays at 2^nd base or home plate. They can work together to grovel for pork in their home districts or states. But can they actually share a meal? Perhaps more significantly, can they even share a joke?

This last question may provide a window into the differences between Democrats and Republicans. It strikes me that humor for progressives is often self-deprecating. For Republicans, it seems to be harsh and mean. I don’t have the empirical evidence for this, but that’s my point. There is so much that needs to be studied.

I have tried to communicate with the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney, but to no avail. He is a dogged environmental reporter and certainly in the era of Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt and others, his plate is full. But he brought a very scholarly and conversational approach to what makes Republicans different and unique. If he does not want to carry on that torch, then someone else needs to.

Here are a few questions that I think need to be addressed:

1. Why is it that so many Republican women were more likely to believe Brett Kavanaugh than Christine Blasey-Ford?
2. Why did the likes of seemingly mild-mannered people like Jeff Flake and Susan Collins say that if they were in Kavanaugh’s position, they too would be angry? Or, in other words, why did they base these statements on a “given” that “being in his position” means being falsely accused? Does it even register to them that Dr. Blasey-Ford may be telling the truth and Kavanaugh is more than a bully; he is an abuser.
3. Why was Lindsey Graham’s anger considered so becoming?
4. Why is Donald Trump’s outrage considered charming?
5. Why do so many Republicans so fervently support family values when they promote policies that break up families?
6. Why is it that Republicans oppose regulations on campaign finance when it adds to their personal misery of having to spend endless hours raising money?
7. Why is it that Republicans favor lowering taxes for the wealthy in order to provide less revenue to fund programs for the non-wealthy?
8. What is it about science that Republicans don’t like?
9. Why are Republicans so anti-regulation and at the same time so anti-choice?
10. Why do most political scandals involve Republicans (e.g. Watergate, Trumpgate, etc.)?

If I was more of an academic person, I would try to provide answers to these questions supported with  substantiation. Right now, there are thousands, probably tens of thousands of academics who are working on studies that will be of little interest to anyone and that will not do much to improve the quality of life for anyone.

I’m happy to keep providing questions. So are many more. But we need answers, even approximations, now so that those who are not Republicans can gain greater insight into why Republicans are the way they are.

I don’t even know if Republicans have this kind of curiosity about Democrats; put that on the list of questions.

Please let us know if you want to help us find some answers to these often vexing questions about Republicans.

The post We Need Help – Understanding the Republican Brain appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The House has passed a tax bill that is disproportionately kind to the wealthy; the Senate is about to do the same and then Donald Trump can flash that Cheshire grin again as he signs a document that may sound good to his base, but in reality will not be.

Besides stacking the deck in favor of the likes of himself, the bill also gives him and other Republicans a long-awaited victory in dissembling the Affordable Care Act. The individual mandate for health care coverage will essentially be gutted because penalties for non-compliance are eliminated. This means that thirteen million fewer individuals will have health care coverage and premiums will go up for those who still have coverage.

Regrettably, the underlying theme to Republican policies is meanness. Parenthetically, it might be noted that a recent CNN poll shows that Republican Senator is 20% more popular among Democrats than members of his own party (68% – 48%). If only McCain would show the party the same respect that they show to him.

The recent literal train wreck in Washington State gave Trump another opportunity to call next for a robust infrastructure bill. Of course, this comes as his budget cuts infrastructure spending by $55 billion, including a considerable amount for Amtrak. None of this stops Trump from calling for massive upgrades to our roads, bridges, airports, rail system – just about everything except cyber security. Democrats have talked about a real infrastructure bill that would cost on the order of a trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money, but it be fresh money going into circulation and the multiplier effect of contractors and workers receiving it would mean that each dollar would turn over in the economy up to four times in a year. Much of that would come back in the way of tax revenue.

Trump has also spoken about a trillion dollars for infrastructure, but up to eighty percent of it would be smoke and mirrors. That’s because it would not be actual federal spending. Instead, it would be up to $800 billion in tax breaks to contractors and real estate owners such as himself to “stimulate” infrastructure growth.

This one has difficulty passing the giggle test, because tax breaks for the wealthy do what they are called, they give more money to the wealthy. Without macro plans from the government to fund necessary projects, there will be negligible improvement to the infrastructure. What should be a major public program to improve the lives of the American people is just a further transference of public money into the coffers of the wealthy.

The mysteries of the Republican brain continue to be at the center of dysfunctional policies. There seems to be a lack of empathy, and policy-makers do not mind constructing programs that harm the most vulnerable (one of the seven forbidden words) among us. But even more odd is how the economically deprived in the Republican base have difficulty seeing who is oppressing them. They may scapegoat that it is “liberal values” and a lack of respect for their hard work (not everyone in any “class” is really a hard worker). It’s true that liberal programs have not always been a panacea for those who are designed to help, but the progressive perspective is to try to help and learn from mistakes. Many Republicans are happy to oppress their base if it means more money for the wealthy. That’s the tax bill and a likely infrastructure bill to come.

Democrats must put all the pressure they can on Trump so he seriously negotiates with “Chuck and Nancy” so that something can be salvaged. But that might be expecting too much of a man constructed like Trump.

The post Next: Republican Meanness in an Infrastructure Bill appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It becomes more apparent when Donald Trump goes into Tweet-storm mode, but it’s always there. This man has serious psychological issues which have nothing to do with politics.

It’s a total distraction to say, “The president thinks” or “The president now believes.” To try to understand the man, we need to examine his psyche first and his politics later. In fairness, we should do the same with everyone in politics.

Washington Post writer Chris Mooney awakened us years ago to the concept of “The Republican Brain” through his book by the same name. But it would be duplicitous to only examine the psychological make-up of Republicans and not Democrats. In fact, we should do so with anyone aspiring to a position of power, whether that be in politics or in the private sector.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have been reluctant to try to psychoanalyze politicians. The American Psychological Association established the “Goldwater Rule” which said that it is unethical for mental health professionals to try to analyze individuals whom they have not personally examined. That may make sense, but it does not make sense for the entire populace to refrain from assessing what they see as psychological strengths and weaknesses of people in public life.

At the top of the news now is Trump’s firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey. When the president changes his mind so many times about how it happened and why it happened, we must wonder what is going on inside his brain. Let me posit one theory about how he operates, and this is hardly unique one.

Like so many of us, perhaps all of us, Trump seems to be on the autism spectrum. One such indicator is having enormous insight into something while being clueless about others.

When it comes to insight, Trump seemed to understand the American electorate more than virtually anyone else in politics or punditry. He sensed that there was something that could be called the “Trump voter.” That person was generally white, not particularly well-educated, often angry and disdainful of complex answers to complex questions. Trump knew that he could win the Electoral College if he campaigned in areas where these people lived. He sensed that Hillary Clinton was not properly reaching out to potential supporters who could put her over the top.

But then there are the blind spots that a person on the autism spectrum has. Trump apparently had no sense of the optics of him bringing Henry Kissinger into the White House for a photo session the day after firing Comey. Kissinger is most identified with Richard Nixon and Nixon was “fire-happy” as witness the Saturday Night Massacre. On the same day, he brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office. Comey had been investigating Trump campaign connections with Russia.

But back to the other side of the autism spectrum. Trump seems to know that how progressives and even the mainstream media feel about what he has done to Comey may have little, if any, impact on how the people who voted for him think about the firing. The erratic behavior of the president might be a non-issue because he still represents the anger that many of them harbor towards almost anything mainstream.

What’s intriguing is how “Trump the President” gets a pass from so many of his supporters. But if a person with Trump’s characteristic was their boss, their teacher, or even their brother-in-law, there would be little tolerance of his behavior. The “Trump person” would be directly impacting them in a way in which they could see and a way which they would not like.

The whole idea of talking about public persona in a way which includes psychological assessment is scary and frightening. But the costs of not doing it may be even more risky. If we make it open season on trying to psychoanalyze our leaders, we are essentially saying that it’s okay for us to do that with everyone we know, or even those we don’t know. But the cat is out of the bag. We do it.

As citizens, we may find it much more beneficial to ourselves and our country to pay less attention to the political Donald Trump or even the governing Donald Trump than it is to look at his psyche. At this point, there is good reason to conclude that he is the wrong person in the wrong office. The 25^th Amendment and impeachment process provide ways to deal with this. Nothing will happen without a few courageous Republicans. As David Gergen has asked, where is the next Howard Baker?

The post With Trump, it’s the psyche, not the politics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What happens when a narcissist is overwhelmed with kindness? I really can’t call Donald Trump a narcissist since I am not a trained therapist and I have never examined him. But using the word narcissist is a lot easier than saying “a person who appears to an ordinary layman to have narcissistic tendencies.”

There is no need to run down the litany of insults that he has thrown to virtually everyone who has registered on his radar screen, but recently the two people who have most been in his crosshairs are President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

For both of them, the results of the 2016 presidential election were extremely painful. It would be understandable of either of them had lashed out at Trump, at the media, at the voters, at the system, and virtually anything and everything that might have had something to do with the crushing defeat for the Democrats. But neither of them did, at least publicly.

In her concession remarks, Secretary Clinton said, “Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”

Later that day, President Obama said, “Because we are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country. The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months, we are going to show that to the world.”

Compare the words of Clinton and Obama with those of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell shortly after President Obama was elected. He said that his number-one goal was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.”

McConnell did not reach his goal of making Obama a single-term president, but in the long-run, he may have won the war. He and his House colleagues blocked virtually everything that the President wanted to achieve with Congressional approval. What they didn’t stop, they aim to reverse upon Trump’s ascension to power.

There is no easy path as to how others might best respond to Donald Trump the president, nor is there to how to respond to those who voted for him. We do know that there was and is a tremendous amount of anger within them.  This raises two key questions:

1. What made them angry?
2. Why did they channel so much of it towards Hillary Clinton as they did?

There are no clear answers, but in coming posts we are going to try to explore what they might be. In the past we have written about the Republican Brain. Certainly the last eighteen months have taught us more about it, but if progressives had a good idea of how to tend to the Republican Brain, we wouldn’t be in the fix that we’re in now.

There are those who think that the societal causes which influence a person to be narcissistic include a lack of warm parenting and a lack of warm friendships. The “cures” to narcissism are few and far between. We might think that we could try to “kill Trump with kindness,” but that seems have never worked with him and the rough and tumble of politics and government is no place to start.

But this should not cause is to lower our own standards for decency and compassion. Secretary Clinton and President Obama set the examples for us. We probably won’t change Trump, but what can we do to make his followers less angry and obstinate? The answer is not for us to become that way, but rather to try to better understand what frustrates them and what they do with that frustration. We have a little time now, so let’s engage in a little reflection.

The post We can learn a lot from the President and Hillary Clinton about how to respond to Trump appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all of our political stereotypes were affirmed with every individual? You know, for progressives it would be easy if every Republican was gun-toting, uneducated, war-mongering, angry and generally uncouth. Without naming names, there are plenty of such types to go around. And before we go any further, progressives must keep in mind that others have their own stereotypes of us: tree-hugging, always politically correct, disrespecting authority, and even bed-wetting. Because I largely travel in the company of progressives, I know that the stereotype of liberals may be accurate about two per-cent of the time.

I would argue that Republicans fit more into some semblance of the stereotypical cage that many progressives give them. And when progressive run into a Republican who does not fit the stereotypical image that we have of them, it can become challenging. But do not totally fear, progressives are much better at tolerating ambiguity than conservatives.

Wisconsin congressman and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan certainly presents challenges for progressives. He is somewhat of the anti-Trump, which appeals to many, but in reality he is but one among many Republicans who fit that moniker. It’s more than that. He seems like the kind of guy who you would trust to take your kid with his family on an “American vacation.” He’s most likely polite to people who wait on him. In his personal life he probably has equal respect for men and women and does not bear ill-feelings towards those whose sexual orientation is different from his own. But dammit, those ideas of his can be unnerving.

As reported in The Economist:

A dogmatic conservative, Mr. Ryan has often used the budget process to score ideological points. He puts too much faith in supply-side reform as a growth-boosting counterweight to austerity. He launched a hapless effort to defund the health-care reform that is President Barack Obama’s main domestic achievement.

He is a devotee of the author Ayn Rand and has said,

“What’s unique about what’s happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it’s as if we’re living in an Ayn Rand novel right now. I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”

He has supported generous tax cuts for the wealthy and railed against expenditures to maintain a social safety net, even for children and the elderly. How could a nice guy have such seemingly nasty positions on the issues?

We could learn a thing or two from Reagan biographer Peggy Noonan who told the story that if Reagan was taking a stroll outside the White House and a beggar came up and asked him for a dime, the President without hesitation would reach into his pocket and give him one. But if the same beggar was to be the beneficiary of an economic program that would help him, it’s likely that Reagan would have opposed that program and left the beggar starving.

It is indeed somewhat of a conundrum for progressives when we encounter a Ronald Reagan or a Paul Ryan. How they can personally be so nice while supporting public policies that are Republican-mean is difficult to understand.  This is why it is helpful to study the Republican Brain to gain more insight. In the meantime, it makes sense to be cordial with the likes of Reagan and Ryan, but also to beware.

The post Paul Ryan: When a Republican does not look like a demon to progressives appeared first on Occasional Planet.

How much of science do people believe? In our 2016 survey, we did not ask “What weighs more, a ton of steel or a ton of cotton?” But we did ask people about their understanding of gravity and climate change and other topics. Here are the top findings:*

1. Only 81% of survey respondents believe what scientists say about gravity. What are the other 19% thinking?
2. When it comes to gravity, Republicans and Democrats are both on the same page.
3. Republicans have less faith in weather forecasts, whether or not a drug is safe to take, and yes, climate change.

It seems that Republicans have more trouble with scientific knowledge if it is sanctioned by the government. Only 34% of Republicans believe weather forecasts, even though data indicates that 48-hour forecasts from the National Weather Service are remarkably accurate. A similar number of Republicans believe information about whether or not a drug is safe, which might in part explain why Republicans are not so supportive of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Contributions from pharmaceuticals might also influence Republicans (and Democrats) in Washington.

But as might be expected, in our survey, Republicans were less than half as likely to believe what scientists say about climate change (35% to 86%). A clear question is whether or not Republicans are just skeptical of scientists who write about climate change, or if this is a different kind of “learned behavior?” Is their thinking influenced by church teachings? What about what Republican office-holders say? If that is so, does it mean that campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies to Republican candidates have a “trickle down” effect of polluting the thinking of rank-and-file Republicans on climate change? This question is one for further exploration.

Here are a couple of other observations from the survey:

Figure 2

The blue vertical bar represents the thinking of 18-29 year olds. This group has more confidence across the board in what scientists say. This raises two related questions:

1. Did the people in the other three age brackets used to have more faith in what scientists said when they were younger?
2. Will the current group of 18–29 year olds have less faith in science as they get further removed from school? If so, why?

A final finding is very tentative because of sample size. But we found that the African-Americans who took the on-line survey showed less belief than others in what scientists say.

Most profoundly, only 6% of African-American Democrats believe that the number of calories listed for a food is accurate. The sample size of African-Americans was only 50, so this will certainly require more study.

But the most vexing question is the one we cited first. Why do so many people not believe what scientists say about gravity. To try to answer that question, we refer them to several experiments on gravity conducted by non-scientist David Letterman in 1986, while dropping “stuff” off a “five-story tower” in New Rochelle, NY.

*Occasional Planet interviewed 550 Americans on January 14-15, 2016, using the services of the online-site Survey Monkey. The sample size is reliable +/- 4.5%, 95% of the time. It is demographically balanced by gender, ethnicity, age, income and geographic region.

The post Survey: Do you believe in science? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Conventional wisdom holds that Republicans are the party of the wealthy. But as Donald Trump’s campaign has clearly revealed, there are plenty of Republicans out there who are not particularly wealthy.

In a recent Occasional Planet poll*, we asked, “In your opinion, what do you think is the primary reason that some people in America are richer than others?” The answer choices were:

1. The rich deserve to be richer
2. The rich are smarter
3. The rich work harder
4. Our economic system favors the rich
5. The luck of the draw

As you can see from the chart of all respondents, hardly anyone said that the “the rich deserve to be richer,” and only a few more said “the rich are smarter.” Most said, “Our economic system favors the rich.”

Conventional wisdom would say that more Democrats than Republicans believe that the economic system favors the rich  The survey appears to validate that notion.

You can see that 80% of Democrats polled believe that our economic system favors the rich, compared to only 27% of Republicans. Independents fall in the middle at 58%.

Conventional wisdom would further say that lower income people would be more likely to say that our system favors the rich. Again, the survey seems to support that idea, but not as dramatically.

The blue bar represents respondents from households earning less than $50,000 per year. The gray bar shows those from households with incomes of over $150,000. Seventy percent of the lower-income group believe that our economic system favors the wealthy. Only 46% of those with household incomes over $150,000 believe that.

There might be an anomaly here, with 46% of the wealthy believing the supposition, and with only 27% of Republicans accepting that perspective. Is this a relatively small fissure between Republicans in general and the wealthy, or is it a great divide?

We drilled down further and here’s what we found.

Figure 4 represents the views of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, separated by household income level.

Inside the blue bars in the middle, we can see there is virtually no difference among Democrats of different income levels in accepting the premise that “our economic system favors the rich.

Inside the red bars on the left, we see a monumental difference between wealthy and low-income Republicans. Only 6% of wealthy Republicans accept the premise that “our economic system favors the rich.” But for those Republicans who are members of low income households, fully 52% believe that “our economic system favors the rich.” This is nearly a nine-fold difference.

What does all of this mean?

1. On the question of whether our economic system favors the wealthy, there seems to be unanimity among Democrats, regardless of their household incomes.
2. On the same question, there is a deep division among Republicans from high-income and low-income families.

• Do these results mean that there are two large groups of Republicans:  one consisting of the wealthy who want to protect most private wealth in the United States; and a second group of lower-income Republicans who live somewhat of a hard-scrabble life and, perhaps, are among Donald Trump’s “angry supporters?”
• While this contention seems to make sense, it will require far more study. A larger sample size might yield more reliable results.

We will conduct at least one further study examining these questions,  and on the ultimate question we are asking:   “Why are the Democratic and Republican brains so different from one another,” and what can we do to try to have a more fair and just America and world.

*Occasional Planet interviewed 550 Americans on January 14-15, 2016, using the services of the online-site Survey Monkey. The sample size is reliable +/- 4.5%, 95% of the time. It is demographically balanced by gender, ethnicity, age, income and geographic region.

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