1. These are fascinating numbers, from @ThePlumLineGS—62% of white college-educated women say they will definitely vote against Trump. (Only 27% say they will definitely support him.) washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
@ThePlumLineGS 2. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal. But exit polls showed college educated white women backing Romney over Obama in 2012, 52-46%. Exits in 2016 showed a reversal, going narrowly for Clinton over Trump, 51-45%.
@ThePlumLineGS 3. But there were, um, some issues with the exits in 2016 with respect to college-educated voters. Pew’s validated voter survey found all white college-educated voters backing Clinton, 55-38%. So let’s use that as our baseline here. people-press.org/2018/08/09/an-…
@ThePlumLineGS 4. There’s still a sharp erosion of Trump support among college-educated white voters—from losing them 55-38% in 2016 to 57-30% today. But suddenly, the headline is on the other side of the ledger, with non-college-educated whites.
@ThePlumLineGS 5. Pew says whites without a four-year degree backed Trump in 2016, 64-28%. Quinnipiac says that, as of today, that support stands at 45-41%. Is that accurate? Who knows; sampling is hard these days. But that’s one heck of a shift.
@ThePlumLineGS 6. Among white women without college degrees, in particular, Pew says Trump took 56% in 2016. Quinnipiac reports that only 43% say they will definitely back him now, while 47% say they definitely won’t.
@ThePlumLineGS 7. But I think the white men without college degrees are just as interesting here. Pew says that 64% voted for Trump in 2016. In this poll, just 48% say they definitely will in 2020, and 34% definitely won’t. A big group—16%—would consider it, but aren’t definite.
@ThePlumLineGS 8. Takeaways? Trump’s support among white voters continues to erode, across the board—particularly among women, and the college educated. And in the quadrant where he’s been strongest—non-college white men—there’s an unusually large group not yet ready to commit to support.
@ThePlumLineGS 7a. One correction here. Pew’s number for white men without college degrees was 73% backing Trump in 2016; it was 64% of all non-college whites. (This actually makes the shift more salient.) Apologies for the error; leaving the original tweet up for transparency.
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Trump volunteered to pay for the funeral of a murdered U.S. soldier. When the bill came, Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!”
When Trump told his chief of staff he admired "German generals," Kelly asked him: “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals? Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
1. Large numbers of students are arriving at highly selective universities unprepared to read a book cover-to-cover—because no teacher has ever asked them to before, reports @rosehorowitch theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
2. Professors report their students are less able to absorb details while keeping track of the plot, have narrower vocabularies, shut down in the face of challenging ideas, and struggle to persist through challenging texts: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
3. The great Melville scholar Andrew Delbanco has switched his American literature survey to a seminar on short texts, and dropped Moby Dick from his syllabus in favor of Billy Budd and Bartleby. “One has to adjust to the times,” he said. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
1. I’ve spent the past several years trying to solve a riddle: Why has America ceased to be a land of opportunity for so many of its people? The answer, I’ve come to believe, is that we’re STUCK: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700580/s…
2. For centuries, Americans were always starting over, always looking to their next beginning, always seeking to move up by moving on. Mobility has been the great engine of American prosperity, the essential mechanism of social equality, and the ballast of our diverse democracy.
3. At the peak of our mobility, perhaps one in three Americans moved each year. But over the last half-century, we’ve been slowly grinding to a halt. Today, it’s more like one in twelve.
1. We've had 32 presidents who've seen military service, and 31 of them were commissioned officers. Most Americans in uniform are enlisted personnel, but that experience is rare among powerful politicians.
2. James Buchanan served briefly as a private in 1812 in the defense of Baltimore. Among vice presidents, Walter Mondale made it to corporal; Al Gore was a Spec4.
3. The most interesting case is Hannibal Hamlin, who enlisted as a private in the Maine Coast Guard when the war began in 1861. When his unit was activated in 1864 to staff a fort in Kittery, he insisted on doing his part.
My colleague @sophieGG is a treasure—and today, in naming her a finalist for criticism, the Pulitzer board made that official. pulitzer.org/finalists/soph…
Also a Pulitzer finalist? This @julian_aguon story, edited by the incredibly gifted Lenika Cruz, that the jury called "both heartbreaking and hopeful.” theatlantic.com/culture/archiv…
1. Some recent stories that might be helpful in contextualizing tonight’s news 🧵
In December, Mary Zeigler listened to the oral arguments, and wrote that "the Court is poised to reverse Roe outright.” theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
3. Last week, Zeigler and Rachel Rebouché took a detailed look at the legal landscape that Roe will leave behind—where pressures might induce some states to reverse their current course: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…