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Study Shows Trump Voters Are A Lot Like Trump

Study Shows Trump Voters Are A Lot Like Trump

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
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Surprise, surprise: members of the #MAGA set are a lot like Trump himself. We already know that many of Trump’s supporters are prejudiced, authoritarian, and selfish. Now, a new study shows that Trump voters have even more in common with the president than already thought.

In addition to his megalomania, misogyny, racism, and tacky taste in home decor, a few obvious characteristics define Donald Trump: he’s selfish, seeks power over others, is preoccupied with wealth, and prefers conformity and tradition. These four are all traits commonly found in his supporters, as Ryne A. Sherman, a psychology professor at Texas Tech University, shows in a new study.

PsyPost summarizes the study’s results:

“Using an online survey of 1,825 American adults, Sherman found that Trump supporters tended to have little interest in supporting social welfare programs, a strong desire for power over others, a strong desire to make money, a preference for financial risk taking, and a preference for strictly adhering to social traditions.”

People who voted for Trump agreed with the following statements:

  • “People who are poor just need to work harder”
  • “In life, winning is the only thing that matters”
  • “A company’s main focus should be profits”

And they largely disagreed with statements like:

  • “Building relationships is more important than building profit”
  • “Happiness is more important than money”
  • “Protesters are the most patriotic citizens”

The results confirm Sherman’s thesis that human behavior (such as voting habits) is driven by people’s core values. Shared values were a key factor in building support for Trump during his campaign, and could explain why his message resonated so strongly with so many despite political pundits’ assertions that his inexperience and volatility made him unelectable.

“We tend to like people (and organizations) that share our values,” Sherman told PsyPost. “Those who felt more similar to Trump in terms of his values were more likely to support him.”

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

Fired VA Head Warns Against Privatization Schemes

Fired VA Head Warns Against Privatization Schemes

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

Donald Trump did the inevitable Wednesday night and dismissed embattled Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. The former Obama official has been replaced by the president’s personal physician, Admiral Ronny Jackson, who has no qualifiable leadership experience and raised millions of eyebrows last year after publicly proclaiming that Trump was “in excellent health.” But Shulkin refused to go quietly, warning the country that the chaos in the White House could harm veterans for years to come.

In an op-ed for the New York Timespublished hours after his firing, Shulkin cited his various accomplishments during his tenure as the head of VA, including reducing veteran unemployment from 10.2 percent to 3.5 percent and cutting wait times for health care services. He also issued a blistering rebuke to the wave of free-market cheerleaders who have swept into the federal government since Trump’s election.

Describing the warring factions within the VA under Trump, Shulkin wrote:

It seems that these successes within the department have intensified the ambitions of people who want to put V.A. health care in the hands of the private sector. I believe differences in philosophy deserve robust debate, and solutions should be determined based on the merits of the arguments. The advocates within the administration for privatizing V.A. health services, however, reject this approach. They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed. That is because I am convinced that privatization is a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans.

Shulkin, who strongly opposes privatization efforts, warns that the VA “has become entangled in a brutal power struggle, with some political appointees choosing to promote their agendas instead of what’s best for veterans.” Privatization proponents, who want to shut down VA hospitals and hand the task of caring for veterans over to the private sector, fail to grasp “the number and complexity of patients that would come from closing or downsizing VA hospitals and clinics, particularly when it involves the mental health needs of people scarred by the horrors of war.”

Shulkin was one of the few remaining government officials who believe it is their respsonibility to help people, not businesses. His departure is worrisome to all of us who feel the same.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

White Supremacists Are No Longer Just Spreading Their Hate Online

White Supremacists Are No Longer Just Spreading Their Hate Online

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

The rise of far-right extremism on the shadowy corners of the internet is a legitimate concern for those who value tolerance, peace and progress. Now a new study from the ADL’s Center for Extremism reports that radical white nationalist organizations are not content simply to congregate online; increasingly, they are spewing their hatred in traditional, highly visible public banners.

Over the last 10 months, anti-black, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic banners have surfaced on highway overpasses and college campus rooftops across the country. The ADL counts at least 72 such banners since May 2017, an alarming rate of seven per month. Their messaging is decidedly political in nature, suggesting that the Trump administration’s backward policies, as well as the president’s constant stream of invective, have emboldened the most noxious segment of American society. “Groups associated with the alt right segment of the white supremacist movement are responsible for the bulk of this activism, and accounted for 73 percent of the incidents,” the ADL reveals.

A few groups in particular are to blame. Identity Evropa, a neo-Nazi group whose founder became famous after punching a 95-pound antifa protester in the face, “has used this tactic more than any other group, and is responsible for 28 incidents in 13 different states, or approximately 40 percent of the banner drops.” The group has hung banners reading, “Import the third world, become the third world,” and “You will not replace us,” among others. A banner hung outside Dearborn, Michigan warned drivers: “Danger, Sharia City Ahead.”

Other offenders include Patriot Front, a separate neo-Nazi group responsible for as much as 30 percent of the episodes detailed in the report. Its banners have claimed, “For race and nation” and “Americans are white. The rest must go.”

The ADL has documented signs from Los Angeles to Lakewood, New Jersey reading: “Jews Did 9-11,” “Deport them all,” “The Holocaust is a Lie,” “Feminists Deserve the Rope,” and at the height of NFL players’ protests, “Take a Knee Back in Africa.”

Credit: ADL

Read the full report.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

Four Common Myths About Women’s Pay Gap

Four Common Myths About Women’s Pay Gap

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

The existence of the gender pay gap is a well-documented fact. Respected institutions from the Pew Research Center to the Senate Joint Economic Committee confirm that American women make about 77 cents to the average man’s dollar. For women of color, the disparity is even steeper. Yet conservatives and anti-feminists insist the research is flawed or that it ignores social factors separating men and women. At the current rate at which women’s pay is improving, the World Economic Forum says it will take 200 years to close the gender pay gap worldwide.

This makes it more urgent than ever that we debunk myths about the falsity of the gender pay gap. Here are four of the most common.

1. Myth: Women choose lower-paying work.

Anti-feminists and academic contrarians like to make the case that women are to blame for receiving lower pay because they freely choose lower-paying work. Breitbart likes to push this idea to appease its feminist-hating audience, with headlines like “Data Reveals Women Overwhelmingly Choose Lower-Paying College Majors.” In fact, studies have shown that many women avoid careers in finance and technology that typically pay more because they’ve been socialized to believe that women can’t excel in the sciences or because they lack female role models in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Some women even choose majority-female fields to avoid discrimination and sexual harassment in male-dominated workplaces, which the #MeToo movement has shown us still runs rampant.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a controversial scholar and critic of feminism (whom the Southern Poverty Law Center called out earlier this month for emboldening and legitimizing men’s rights groups) advocated this very argument in 2016 for Time. Feminists, in her view, falsely claim that:

“women’s tendency to retreat from the workplace to raise children or to enter fields like early childhood education and psychology, rather than better paying professions like petroleum engineering, is evidence of continued social coercion. Here is the problem: American women are among the best informed and most self-determining human beings in the world. To say that they are manipulated into their life choices by forces beyond their control is divorced from reality and demeaning, to boot.”

Sommers refers to the well-established fact that even today, women still enter lower-paying fields, as a recent Glassdoor study shows that college majors that lead to lower-paying careers are female-dominated, while those that have more male students, like engineering, lead to high-paying jobs. According to Sommers’ line of thought, a woman should choose engineering over nursing, since she could make more money in that career path. She worries about “self-determination,” but doesn’t it limit a woman’s autonomy to suggest she choose a job path just because it is higher-paying, rather than one she is more passionate about? A better solution, many feminists have argued in response, would be to pay nurses, teachers and other largely female workers more money, rather than pressure more women to opt into certain careers just because they pay more.

Women don’t choose certain jobs because they pay less. On the contrary, historical trends show that as more women entered previously male-dominated fields, average salaries dropped in those jobs. As the Harvard Business Review explains, that’s because the jobs became less prestigious as they became female-dominated:

“Researchers have found that the pay gap is not as simple as women being pushed into lower-paying jobs. In effect, it is the other way around: Certain jobs pay less because women take them. Wages in biology and design were higher when the fields were predominantly male; as more women became biologists and designers, pay dropped. The opposite happened in computing, where early programmers were female. Today, that field is one of the most predominantly male — and one of the highest paying.”

Sommers’ argument is also white-centric, ignoring the fact that poor women of color often do not have the same information or access to options that white women do. It is not “demeaning,” as she says, to assert that such women’s career choices are limited by their circumstances. It’s just the reality of American poverty.

2. Myth: Women choose to work fewer hours and select more part-time work than men do.

This argument has appeared in mainstream outlets such as Forbes, but it only tells part of the story of women’s employment in the U.S.

While it’s true that 31 percent of women work part-time compared to 18 percent of men, this can be largely attributed to the fact that the U.S. still lacks federally mandated family leave, unlike countries like Canada, Germany and the U.K. Without this job protection or flexibility, many women must choose part-time work over full-time. In many households, men are able to earn higher salaries than women, so lots of couples still choose to have the woman remain at home with the children while men go to work. According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, “more than half of the respondents thought children were better off if the mother stayed home” while “34 percent believed they’d be as well off if she worked. Only 8 percent said they’d be better off if the father stayed home.” This commonly held belief isn’t based in fact—stay-at-home-dads can raise kids just as successfully as stay-at-home-moms. In many families, these parenting gender biases and financial factors mean that women still sacrifice their careers to raise children.

3. Myth: Women choose jobs with flexibility over high pay so they can care for families.

Heejung Chung, a sociologist at the University of Kent who studies gender pay gap myths, investigated this subject last year. She found that, despite the popularity of telecommuting and remote work, this myth does not reflect the reality of most workplaces in 2018. The jobs women generally choose often do not provide the flexibility some economists think they prioritize over higher pay. Chung writes in Slate: “working in female-dominated workplaces such as care work, primary education, or places where the work tends to be largely clerical meant you were only half as likely to have access to flexitime compared to other workplaces.”

4. Myth: More women are getting college degrees than men, so the gap will close on its own.

Not true. As explained above, existing sexist social pressures will mean that women will continue to choose college majors that lead to lower-paying jobs. As the Washington Post explains, though the pay gap between younger and more educated men and women is narrower than for older Americans, male college graduates in their 20s still earn more than women the same age.

Credit: The Washington Post

Just because women today have more autonomy in decision-making when it comes to their careers than previous generations doesn’t mean we’ve finished our work in evening out the playing field. As long as male-dominated careers are seen as more prestigious; as long as girls are not encouraged to pursue higher-paying fields early on in life; and as long as working full-time as a mom continues to be a taboo, women will continue to wind up in jobs that pay less.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Fishy Circumstances Of Melania Trump’s Immigration

Fishy Circumstances Of Melania Trump’s Immigration

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

At last, the White House has shared a bit of the mystery behind Melania Trump’s immigration to the U.S. The Washington Post reports that in 2001, Melania received a highly coveted EB-1 visa, generally reserved for renowned leaders in the arts, sciences and business world. Hmm….

EB-1 visas, sometimes called “genius” visas, are normally given to highly accomplished artists, academics, doctors, and engineers around the world. Yet Melania was neither an artist, academic, doctor, nor engineer at the time. She was not engaging in any kind of “extraordinary” enterprise in 2001, unless you count her extraordinary tolerance for dating Donald Trump.

Of the million visas issued in 2001, just 3,376 were awarded to immigrants with an “extraordinary ability,” according to the Post. Melania’s attorney told the paper the first lady was “more than amply qualified and solidly eligible” for the EB-1 visa, but would not provide any of the qualifications Melania cited during her application.

Recipients of the EB-1 visa must provide proof they have won a major award, along with “evidence of commercial successes in the performing arts, evidence of work displayed at artistic exhibitions” or “evidence of original contributions to a field,” the Post writes. Nothing in Melania’s public profile suggests she received any such accolades. Her previous career was in modeling.

For months, the Trump administration has ignored demands to release Melania’s immigration papers, even as Trump has repeatedly spewed his disdain for immigrants, particularly those without legal documentation. He’s been critical of families that immigrate together, referring to them with the conservative slur “chain migration.” Yet Melania’s family followed her to the U.S. using this very same process.

H/T Washington Post

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

How We Fail The Survivors Of Gun Violence

How We Fail The Survivors Of Gun Violence

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week claimed 17 lives and resulted in 14 gunshot injuries. As a heightened national conversation around gun control unfolds, we should stay focused on ensuring that the injured students and faculty are adequately provided for. But as a new report by the Trace reveals, in addition to doing a lousy job of preventing gun violence, state governments are doing a poor job of caring for the victims of mass shootings when they occur.

Seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand Americans were injured by gunfire in the past decade, and 430,000 survived. Surviving gun violence is expensive, and too many victims end up paying for the costs out of pocket. Dr. Robert Sege, who has studied the topic extensively, told NPR, “the direct medical costs that we found for the year 2009 alone was $148 million. But those are the hospital charges. In addition, each child had physician charges. They may have had x-rays. They may have had rehabilitation costs, and of course their parents had lost work.”

This is what happened to Jennifer Longdon, who was shot in her car one night in 2004 along with her husband while the two were leaving the martial-arts studio in Phoenix that he owned. Longdon was left paraplegic after a five-month hospital stay. Mother Jones writes that, “shortly after the shooting, her health insurance provider found a way to drop her coverage based on a preexisting condition. She would be hospitalized three more times in quick succession, twice for infections and once for a broken bone; all told, the bills would approach $1 million in the first year alone. Longdon was forced to file for personal bankruptcy—a stinging humiliation for someone who had earned about $80,000 a year.”

It’s unclear how often insurance companies shrugged off the responsibility of caring for gun violence survivors based on pre-existing conditions before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But there are financial complications resulting from surviving a shooting that still today fall out of the scope of health insurance coverage.

A fund is set up to assist people for this very reason: The Victims of Crime Act, passed in 1984, required states to allot money to pay for the varied costs of recovering from violent crime and living in its aftermath. But as the Trace reveals, significant barriers prevent many gun violence survivors from accessing the fund:

“Victim advocates, anti-violence activists, and social workers interviewed by The Trace said that victims of violent crime face numerous hurdles in applying for the funds. They say that for traumatized victims, the eligibility criteria can be daunting, the applications toilsome, and processing times long….Most vexing, advocates say, is that state laws that govern compensation programs can ultimately exclude people at the highest risk of being shot. While black men disproportionately experience violence, they are also more likely than whites to have been convicted of a felony, which in some states can disqualify people from receiving funds.”

Another major barrier: the assistance funds apply to a limited portion of gun violence victims.

“If a person has any type of insurance, even if it’s Medicaid, we can’t do a whole lot for them,” James McCurtis, manager of the Division of Victim Services in Michigan, told the Trace. “We’re limited by statute in terms of what we can do.”

When they are eligible, survivors who have gone through the process of applying for the victim’s compensation funding describe the process as demanding. “It’s like a list of 15 things that they’re asking for, and I was only able to obtain, like, six of them,” one victim said.

Experts call the failure of the fund to actually compensate victims “ironic.” “It often really adds to the pain that they are going through,” Alicia Boccellari, a clinical psychologist and founder of the UC San Francisco’s Trauma Recovery Center, told the Trace. “It puts a lot of expectations on them, when they really have so few inner resources to deal with all this. Sometimes the victim ends up feeling further victimized.”

It’s the government’s job to keep citizens well-informed about their rights, but public education for resources like victim’s compensation is a consistent failure among many government agencies. According to the Trace, lack of adequate education about the funding is to blame for this failing. Of nearly 25 gun victims interviewed for the Trace article, “about half had not applied for compensation in the first place.” Some were misinformed about how to access the funding or whether or not they qualified. Others who did apply said they were denied compensation because they were not deemed eligible according to their state’s criteria. Douglas Evans, a researcher at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, confirms this in a 2014 report. “Because victim compensation is not as well-known as other forms of compensation (i.e., workers compensation), lack of awareness is often the primary obstacle that victims and survivors must overcome,” he wrote.

Whenever a mass shooting like the one in Parkland occurs, a narrow window of opportunity appears in which to discuss the complex issue of gun violence. Now is the time to demand states more proactively assist victims and their families with the exorbitant costs of recovery. The survivors of these too frequent episodes of violence deserve justice and fair compensation.

 

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Crime Is Down Drastically — But Americans Are More Fearful Than Ever

Crime Is Down Drastically — But Americans Are More Fearful Than Ever

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

On the subject of crime, there is good news and bad. Reports by both the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that crime has decreased in the past 25 years in the U.S. Violent crime fell between 48% and 74% since 1993, based on the agencies’ measures, respectively. Property crime has fallen sharply, too: the FBI estimates a drop of 48% between 1993 and 2016, and BJS reports 66%.

While the organizations have different parameters for measuring crime, their results show the same conclusion: Americans are safer than they have been in a quarter century. So why do Americans say crime is a bigger concern than ever before?

A study at Pew Research Center shows the juxtaposition between the reality of falling crime rates and Americans’ growing fear of crime. “In 17 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least six in 10 Americans said there was more crime in the U.S. compared with the year before, despite the generally downward trend in national violent and property crime rates during much of that period.”

“Pew Research Center surveys have found a similar pattern. In a survey in late 2016, 57% of registered voters said crime in the U.S. had gotten worse since 2008, even though BJS and FBI data show that violent and property crime rates declined by double-digit percentagesduring that span.”

To view it differently, as Christian Science Monitor writes, “people became 62 percent less likely to become the victim of a violent crime between 1993 and 2014. The number of violent-crime victims per 1,000 persons age 12 or older dropped from 29.3 to just 11.1 in that period, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics.”

So why are Americans more fearful of crime than ever? There are two likely reasons: the over-reporting of crime by national and local news media, and politically motivated lies spread by conservative politicians.

The 24-hour television news media fills open-air time with salacious reports of violent crimes that are disproportionate to actual crimes stats. Experts confirm this: in their book Crime, Media, and Reality: Examining Mixed Messages About Crime and Justice in Popular Media, Venessa Garcia and‎ Samantha G. Arkerson write, “with the exception of weather and traffic, the media dedicate more time to crime than other topics, including sports.”

Crime stories get viewers and clicks like no other vertical, bringing in crucial vital advertising revenue. This has a direct impact on public perception. George Washington University professor Robert Entman and University of Illinois-Chicago professor Andrew Rojecki came to the same conclusion in their book The Black Image in the White Mind. As the Chicago Reporter summarizes, Entman and Rojecki “found that the excessive coverage of crime on television news tends to create a misperception among the public that crime is a bigger problem than it really is. Even in periods when reported crime actually is down.”

Race can’t be separated from conversations about how news media report on crime. A Media Matters report found that in New York, local news sites disproportionately report on crime stories featuring African American suspects. Over-reporting of crime contributes to many Americans’ racialized views of who commits crime, and where and why. As the Chicago Reporter writes, “Too often, according to Entman and Rojecki, that ‘B’ roll in TV news — the images that are used to show the story while the reporter in voiceover tells the story —tends to include images of African Americans or Latinos in prison settings. More specifically, according to a study by professor Travis Dixon of the University of California at Los Angeles, mug shots and orange jumpsuits are more likely to be shown in TV reports when the accused is a person of color.”

Much blame for the public’s misconception about crime rates also falls on Republican politicians who continually push the narrative that crime is a growing problem and that American cities are hotbeds of violence. While they’ve eased up on this line over the past few years, in light of growing awareness of the racial impact of mass incarceration, and some Republicans have distanced themselves from the “tough on crime” years, dinosaurs like Attorney General Jeff Sessions continue to push tough-on-crime measures like mandatory minimum sentencing laws, despite the fact that most Americans are against them.

It’s easy to see that they do this for political purposes. Take Trump and Paul Ryan’s insistence that banning immigration from Latin America will limit the presence of gangs like MS-13. Other politicians have caught on to the tactic of heightening crime stories to push for anti-immigrant policy; in New Jersey last year, gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno claimed in an attack ad that her opponent, now governor Phil Murphy, would safeguard rapists and criminals in his support of sanctuary cities. In Iowa, Congressman Steve King made the outrageous claim that undocumented immigrants who come from countries with high murder rates present a danger to Americans. And in the recent Virginia gubernatorial race, Ed Gillespie ran an attack ad accusing opponent and now-governor Ralph Northam of “letting illegal immigrants who commit crimes back on the street, increasing the threat of MS-13.”

Most people believe what they’re told. As long as mainstream news media and elected officials continue to push the narrative that crime is on the rise, many Americans will continue to fall for their fear-mongering.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Major Newspaper Under Fire For Racist Anti-Dreamer Cartoon

Major Newspaper Under Fire For Racist Anti-Dreamer Cartoon

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

As the deadline to renew the Dream Act approaches, the 800,000 mostly young Dreamers have endured abuse from the government and mainstream media alike. They’ve become political chess pieces for legislators with little regard for their fate, and have withstood racist and dishonest name-calling from the Trump administration. And while two-thirds of Americanssupport legislation that would give the Dreamers full legal status, they are still being subjected to ugly episodes of racism.

The latest comes from New Mexico, in the form of an offensive cartoon published in the Albuquerque Journal. Los Angeles Times journalist Kate Linthicum pointed out the obscene cartoon Wednesday on Twitter:

Social media users widely denounced the cartoon, as well as New Mexico legislators. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich cast shame on the newspaper “for stooping to a new low and publishing a heinous and bigoted depiction of Dreamers in today’s paper that serves only to sow division in our community.” Democratic State Sen. Linda Lopez decried the cartoon’s “ignorance, racism and hatred.” Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) tweeted the following: “Words and images are still hateful and offensive, even when they appear in a cartoon. The @ABQJournal should apologize.”

The Albuquerque Journal is the widest-reaching newspaper in the state. New Mexico has a population of over two million.

Editor Karen Moses responded to the backlash with the following statement: “Our editorial pages offer views from all sides of the spectrum, and we realize some of the content will offend readers. We do not agree with many of those views, but their purpose is to spark discussion and debate. In hindsight, instead of generating debate, this cartoon only inflamed emotions. This was not the intent, nor does the Journal condone racism or bigotry in any form.”

The Journal’s editorial page has expressed support for the Dream Act in the past.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Poll: Americans Give Trump Failing Grades

Poll: Americans Give Trump Failing Grades

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Americans aren’t happy with President Donald Trump. While this isn’t news per se, his low approval ratings may leave you wondering just why exactly most citizens are disappointed.

A new poll offers something approaching an answer. According to Politico/Morning Consult’s latest findings, the country is most dissatisfied with the president’s performance in several domestic and international categories.

Of the 1,988 people surveyed in early January, Trump earned an F grade from the majority of respondents. The issues covered include fixing the national debt, immigration and fighting terrorism, among others. When asked for an overall grade on Trump’s first year in office, the lion’s share of respondents (35 percent) gave Trump a failing grade.

Unsurprisingly, the president performed poorest on climate change. A whopping 40 percent said Trump has utterly failed to combat global warming, a grade he likely earned thanks to his retreat from the Paris Agreement and the enormous tax cuts he gifted to the oil and gas industry as part of the GOP’s tax reform bill.

Credit: Politico/Morning Consult

Trump fared almost as badly on foreign relations and health care. In both categories, the largest group of participants (38 percent) gave the president an F.

Politico’s readers tend to lean liberal, though that’s not the case with this poll. Participants are spread evenly between race, gender, geographical location, political leaning, party affiliation, and age. Most earn under $50K and have some college experience, but not a bachelor’s degree.

Interestingly, the poll shows that exactly the same percentage of people think Trump will get better (37 percent) as those who think he’ll get worse (also 37 percent).

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

The Popularity Of Baby Name ‘Donald’ Is Falling Dramatically

The Popularity Of Baby Name ‘Donald’ Is Falling Dramatically

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

The popularity of certain baby names is always a marker of the political times. For example, between 2008 and 2009, the name “Barack” skyrocketed in popularity.

The Social Security Administration will soon release its ranking of the most common names of 2017, but until then, there are a few predictors suggesting “Donald” won’t be a popular one. The drop in baby Donalds fits a pattern since Trump first declared his candidacy for presidency. Between 2016-2017, the popularity of the name dropped by 50%, according to BabyCenter. Time magazine reported last spring that 2016 marked an all-time low in the name’s popularity. Then in 2016, the number of babies named Donald fell more dramatically than it had in years, as the chart below shows.

Elle believes traffic to popular baby name websites could hint at Donald’s lack of popularity in 2017, writing, “The baby-name site Nameberry notes that overall, the pageviews for the name Donald have increased more than tenfold since 2011. Peak months for the name Donald were in November 2016, around the election, and January 2017, around the inauguration. But the traffic for Donald has been dropping since then, and the name got the same amount of pageviews in November as it did in January 2015.”

Even if you aren’t convinced that visits to a website can accurately predict baby name popularity, naming experts may convince you otherwise. According to one theory, Trump is making his name less and less desirable with every needless controversy he initiates. As Laura Wattenberg, founder of parenting website BabynameWizard.com told Newsweek: “Even parents who are huge Donald Trump supporters are unlikely to name their child Donald,” she said. “In part, we just want to avoid controversy in picking names.”

In general, experts say the trend fits a decades-long decrease in the popularity of Donald, simply because it’s an old-fashioned name that’s fallen out of favor as more young parents select hipper names like Noah, Liam and Mason. “I seriously don’t know who would name their baby Donald anymore, including Trump fans,” Pamela Redmond Satran, co-creator of Nameberry, told Elle. “As a name, it’s as out as, say, Shirley. My guess is that it survives mostly as a family name, with baby Donald named for dad and/or grandpa Donald.”

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

After Successfully Bringing Down Her Local Confederate Statues, This Activist Says She’s Ready For Office

After Successfully Bringing Down Her Local Confederate Statues, This Activist Says She’s Ready For Office

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

2017 wasn’t an easy year for progressive activists by any stretch. Between the Muslim ban, the riot in Charlottesville and the struggling Dream Act, it was hard to find any silver linings for social justice. But in cities throughout the U.S., grassroots activism resulted in the successful removal of some of the remaining monuments of our country’s dark past: statues to Confederate war heroes. One such victory in Memphis, Tennessee, came about largely thanks to Tami Sawyer, an education reformer and the face of the #TakeEmDown901 movement, who is now launching a political campaign using her new platform.

Last month, after years of debate between local Black Lives Matter leaders and right-leaning state representatives, Memphis city leaders voted to remove two highly controversial statues: one of Jefferson Davis, a Confederate icon and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and one of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, another early Klan leader.

“Jefferson Davis is known to have said that it is the duty of the white Christian man to own black people because they are unintelligent,” Tami Sawyer told Chalkbeat last year. “So, why is it important for me? It’s because a man that told me that I was dumb and needed to be picking his cotton can’t stand in my city.”

A Memphis native, Sawyer attended the University of Memphis and Howard University law school for a year before taking a job with the U.S. Navy to help diversify their hiring practices. She then moved back to Memphis to take on a similar role with the city’s branch of Teach for America. She quickly became involved in organizing protests in response to the killings of Michael Brown and Memphis teen Darrius Stewart, then turned her attention to the removal of the Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest statues. “To see them taken down at the end of the year was a joyous occasion,” Sawyer told AlterNet. “It was a long road with a lot of back and forth between us and the city, but I rest well at night knowing we led a movement that helped change our city.”

Now that the #TakeEmDown901 movement has succeeded in its mission, Sawyer, voted one of 18 “Tennesseans to watch in 2018” by USA Today, has become the latest of several high-profile local activists to launch political campaigns in recent years. Think of Deray McKesson, Khalid Kamau and the many women who’ve declared candidacy for 2018 after participating in the Women’s March. Like them, Sawyer considers herself part of a new wave of activist-candidates aspiring to public office—with one caveat. “We have to be careful; a lot of people say they’re activists, but the first thing they do when they’re elected is put more police on the street,” Sawyer said.

“But yes, I do believe I’m part of that future. This is a people’s revolution. I’m excited to see that 25,000 women are running, to see young black politicians and young Latinos stepping up. I’m really excited about the last few years. We’re on the verge of real change. I think the type of people we’ll be electing will be much more aware of the impact of systemic oppression on our country and how to repair that with policy.”

At a time when a major push for progress is coming from tech entrepreneurs like the Zuckerbergs of the world, it’s a bit surprising that Sawyer would use a traditional mode like public office to enact change as opposed to the private sector. But for Sawyer, after fighting for years to bring down Memphis’ Confederate statues, launching her campaign for county commissioner felt like the natural next step.

“When I was on the ground doing this work in Memphis, we spent so much time telling officials to listen to us, and there was no one who represents us permanently. I was tired of always asking that people do what I thought was the right thing. There’s a cap on their engagement. I saw our city blocking us out more and more and not responding.” Sawyer decided to run for office to fill this need. No one else was listening to progressives and those fighting for social justice on the ground. “We need leaders who are aligned to our goals. The movement can’t exist just in the street. We need people in office who are connected to the movement.”

Sawyer has words of wisdom for others fighting their own battles to remove the last remnants of the Confederacy. Such campaigns are still underway in Durham, Hollywood, Florida, and elsewhere. “People are gonna say it’s not important, there are other things to focus on. But it’s an important fight. It’s a people’s movement, so don’t give up.”

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Header image source.

Dutch Reporters Blast Lying US Ambassador

Dutch Reporters Blast Lying US Ambassador

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, is proving to be just as cringe-inducing as many of this administration’s other appointees.

You may remember Hoekstra from his viral humiliation in December, when he was caught on camera lying about racist and unfounded statements about the threat of radical Islam. At a 2015 conference, he grossly exaggerated its dangers, claiming “the Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos.” Hoekstra said there is “chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned. And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

When a reporter pressed him on the accuracy of these statements last month, he summoned the spirit of Donald Trump, claiming, “I didn’t say that, it’s an incorrect statement. We’d call that fake news.”

The reporter showed him the exact clip in which Hoekstra had made the remarks about chaos and burning, and said, “You call that fake news?” Yet Hoekstra doubled down: “I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use those words today.”

On Wednesday, Hoekstra dug himself into an even deeper hole at a Dutch press conference marking the beginning of his ambassadorship, when reporters asked again for him to clarify: “Are politicians being burned in the Netherlands? Is that something you believe?”

“I’m not revisiting the issue,” Hoekstra replied. He refused to say anything further, and the room exploded in protest.

“Why don’t you answer the question?” one journalist called out.

“This is the Netherlands, you have to answer questions,” another journalist said. (Whoever she is, she should be promoted to White House correspondent.)

Hoekstra issued a strange half-apology last month after his first “fake news” confrontation, but provided no clarity on his false statements about burning cars and politicians and mythical Sharia-ruled “no-go” zones in the Netherlands. His racial insensitivity shouldn’t surprise anybody; Hoekstra came under fire for issuing a racist Super Bowl ad against his opponent in their 2012 race for Michigan Senate. (The comedy brand Funny or Die later released a parody of the ad, which is worth a watch if you need some comic relief.)

Watch the video of Hoekstra’s interview below.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

The Definitive Guide To Understanding The Sinister Tactics Behind Trump’s Tweets

The Definitive Guide To Understanding The Sinister Tactics Behind Trump’s Tweets

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

Over the past two years, Trump’s Twitter habits have been honed and polished into an art form. And really, he is a master at it. Maybe after Mueller takes him down, he can write “The Art of the Tweet.” Until then, Americans will continue to reel from unfiltered posts like his most recent threats to North Korea and play the absurd game of trying to tell if our lives are immediately under threat or not.

But one scholar of linguistics and philosophy has masterfully deciphered the strategy behind Trump’s tweets, and it’s just the tool we need going into 2018.

Berkeley professor George Lakoff posted a master key to classifying Trump’s tweeting method this week, and it’s blown up on Twitter.

 

Looking back on Trump’s most outrageous tweets, they can almost all be classified into one of four buckets. Lakoff explains the taxonomy in fuller detail in a comment thread.

“The tweets either get his framing established first, knowing that whoever frames first tends to win,” he wrote. “Or when things look bad for him, he diverts attention or attacks the messenger. And when he wants to test public opinion, he puts out an outrageous trial balloon.”

No matter what he tweets, Trump’s unfounded and dangerous statements work to his advantage by painting him as a maverick alt-truthsayer. “The constant attacks and outrage increase his credibility with his base. He can portray himself as a victim of the ‘establishment’—under constant attacks (which he provokes with tweets). He acts, his opponents only react. He is in heroic control.”

Lakoff has a warning for journalists who are quick to take Trump’s tweets seriously.

“Each tweet gets his message retweeted so he dominates social media. Reporters, social media influencers, and many others fall for it hook, line and sinker. Every time. They retweet, share and repeat his messages ad infinitum. This helps Trump tremendously. They may think they’re negating or undermining him, but that’s not how human brains work. As a cognitive scientist, I can tell you: repeating his messages only helps him.”

Our outrage at the president’s behavior is understandable, Lakoff says. But it’s unproductive to delve into an endless spiral of “can you believe he just said that?”

“Do you deal with a child or a deranged person by sinking to their level?” Lakoff asks. “Do you mock and scorn them, or trumpet their ridiculousness on the front page? No.”

Lakoff has taken it upon himself to translate the muddled language of Trumpism over the past two years. The 2016 essay he wrote on “Understanding Trump” still holds today; it’s an analysis of the driving forces that made Trump the perfect Republican candidate for 2016.

There is a solution to escaping from Trump’s tweeting clutches, according to Lakoff. Talk about the truth, track his attempts to divert and remain steadfast in sticking to the real issues at hand.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

6 Big Victories For Feminism In 2017, Despite Donald Trump And Other Toxic Men

6 Big Victories For Feminism In 2017, Despite Donald Trump And Other Toxic Men

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Depending on how you look at it, 2017 was either a great year for feminists or a terrible one. Galvinized by the election of Donald Trump, this year sparked a new rage in millions of women who are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. There’s a reason why Merriam-Webster declared “feminism” 2017’s word of the year, after all. The new progressive energy in women is potent in a way it hasn’t been in years, and it’s worth looking back on the year’s feminist victories to remember how it all erupted. Here’s to an even more victorious 2018.

1. The Women’s March

The feminist momentum fueling the resistance in 2017 undoubtedly began in January, the day after Trump’s inauguration. In almost 1,000 separate yet unified marches, in 92 countries and all 50 states, over 5 million people took to the streets to protest regressive policies and to advocate for gender and LGBTQ equality, racial justice, equitable health care and immigration laws, economic opportunity, and climate justice. The march broke numerous records as the largest day of protest in American history. The 2018 Women’s March will focus on rallying energy for the midterm elections later next year.

2. International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day on March 8 was the most talked about day of the year online, according to Facebook’s data. In the U.S., activists marked the day with protests and the Day Without A Woman strike (which some have criticized for ostracizing poor women). 2017’s eruption of feminist anger drew an unprecedented level of attention to International Women’s Day, as women across the globe marched to demand equal pay and treatment and denounce inequality and violence against women.

3. Women in Congress Raised Their Voices

Some of the year’s feminist battle cries were inspired by three female politicians. “Nevertheless, she persisted,” Mitch McConnell’s insult targeted at Elizabeth Warren backfired; Maxine Waters “reclaiming her time” in the face of Steven Mnuchin’s insults; and most recently, Kirsten Gillibrand’s promise that “you cannot silence me” after Trump smeared her on Twitter when she called for investigations into the sexual assault allegations against him.

4. Historic November Elections

In addition to the 2017 off-year November elections bringing in a wave of Democrat candidates, the day was marked with some history-making feminist victories. Danica Roen, a transgender woman in Virginia, beat one of the state’s most conservative Republican incumbents. Vi Lyles became the first black female mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina. And Seattle elected its first lesbian mayor (and first female mayor in nearly a century), Jenny Durkin. Beyond the candidates themselves, there were major legislative wins. Nevada became the 36th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, refueling the decades-long cry for a federal bill guaranteeing equal treatment for all, regardless of gender. Also, Oregon and Illinois approved state funding for abortions.

5. TheRipple Effect of #MeToo

Despite the astounding accusations against celebrated male entertainers and business leaders, perhaps the most impressive aspect of the #MeToo movement is that ordinary women have been impacted for the better. Among the “silence breakers” highlighted in Time Magazine’s Person of the Year issue, were the low-wage strawberry pickers who victoriously protested their mistreatment. Recently and similarly, In These Times highlighted the stories of tomato pickers in Florida who rose up against sexual abuse in the fields. Real change is underway in universities, restaurants and offices across the country.

Another sign of #MeToo’s long-term impact: national conversations around sexual harassment and assault in the workplace have even trickled down to classrooms that train future CEOs. The New York Times recently visited classrooms at the nation’s most reputable business schools and found students debating gender’s role in business. “Ethics and values have taken on more significance,” Ed Soule, a professor at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business, told the Times. “It has to do with all of the things going on in this administration, often things that challenge our understanding of ethics and leadership.”

6. The 2018 Elections Could Shift the Gender Ratio in the Country’s Leadership

According to Emily’s List, over 20,000 women have contacted the organization about running for office in 2018. “This is a surge of grassroots energy unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” said Emily’s List president Stephanie Schriock. “We’ve spent more than 30 years preparing for this kind of moment, and we’re ready to channel this energy into wins for women up and down the ballot.”

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Why Is A Small Montana Town A Hotbed Of Far-Right Activity?

Why Is A Small Montana Town A Hotbed Of Far-Right Activity?

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Something fishy is going on in Whitefish, Montana. The small town of 6,500 is in one of America’s most rural regions, but it has occupied a lot of media space this year. Since the beginning of 2017, the town’s name has popped up repeatedly in stories about the far right. Whitefish is the home base for Trump’s potential private spy agency, as well as the tiny company contracted to restore power in Puerto Rico, and early in the year, the town drew media attention as the proposed meeting point for an anti-Semitic rally. On the surface, these may not seem related. But on closer examination, all three are clearly linked to the Trump White House.

Let’s begin with Whitefish Energy. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and left the island without power, a tiny company based in Whitefish, operating for less than two years, was contracted to restore power for a hefty fee of $300 million. The Puerto Rican government opposed the Whitefish Energy deal and it ultimately fell through, terminating November 30. The FBI has since launched an investigation into the contract.

It was through the Puerto Rico story that many first learned of the Trump administration’s ties to Whitefish. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke grew up in Whitefish and has personal and business ties to the energy group contracted for the work in Puerto Rico, leading many to suspect that Zinke had ulterior motives for choosing the firm over larger, more experienced competitors. The Washington Post reported that Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski and Zinke are acquainted, “but only, Zinke’s office said in an email, because Whitefish is a small town where ‘everybody knows everybody.’…Zinke’s office said he had no role in Whitefish securing the contract for work in Puerto Rico. Techmanski also said Zinke was not involved.”

Special favors among powerful business owners and local politicians, while unethical, aren’t anything new, and once the relationship between Zinke and Whitefish Energy was revealed in full, Puerto Rican officials called for the contract to be voided. Actually, the company continued work through Novemberuntil it claimed it was owed over $80 million in fees by the government. According to Slate, “Under the contract, subcontractors made as much as $462 per hour, racking up high costs for PREPA, which was already billions in debtbefore the Hurricane struck.”

But that wasn’t the last we would hear of Whitefish, Montana.

Most recently, Buzzfeed reported that Trump was considering launching a new intelligence agency that some are calling a “private CIA.” Amyntor Group, the company that submitted the proposal, is a private contractor that provides intelligence and militia manpower to governments and corporations, and is based in Whitefish. Buzzfeed says there’s “no known relationship” between Amyntor and Whitefish Energy, but both groups have connections to the Trump administration. In addition to Zinke’s tie to Whitefish Energy, Amyntor has an advocate close to the president: Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos and a vocal proponent of the American government’s use of private contracted militias (like his own, Blackwater). Prince is one of the key figures pushing the Trump administration to employ private spies, and Trump is allegedly tempted as he’s frequently expressed his disdain for both the CIA and the FBI. Prince is a former Navy SEAL—as is Ryan Zinke.

Simmering beneath these suspicious White House deals is the well-documented tradition of white supremacy and neo-Nazism in the town of Whitefish. The town is home to white supremacist leader Richard Spencer and Chuck Baldwin, a radical-right extremist minister who preaches Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia among other strains of hate. Buzzfeed News looked into the remarkable growth of white supremacism in this isolated region, and explained the trend of neo-Nazis moving to the area as follows:

“Flathead County, population 96,000, is one of the whitest places in the nation (95.2%). There are other allures for people at odds with mainstream American culture: the large pockets of open space, the ability to live off the grid, the lack of restriction when it comes to gun ownership. The Montana political ethos—some mix of libertarian, conservative, and ‘don’t f**k with me’—is inviting that way. As a local pastor put it, ‘It’s a place where people can feel safe when they say outrageous things.'”

Neo-Nazis in Spencer’s camp planned to march on Whitefish around the same time as the Women’s March earlier this year, in a rally targeted “against Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either.” The Daily Stormer promised around 200 skinheads would invade the town “carrying high-powered rifles” to defend Spencer’s honor. In response, counterprotesters gathered, local residents handed out matzoh ball soup and the skinheads never showed up.

The Whitefish city government has repeatedly denounced Spencer and his presence in their town. The mayor said in a public statement last year, “The city of Whitefish repudiates the ideas and ideology of the founder of the so-called alt-right as a direct affront to our community’s core values and principles. The city of Whitefish rejects racism and bigotry in all its forms and expressions.”

The wave of right-wing hate in Whitefish is also connected to Trump’s cabinet; here again, Interior Sec. Zinke’s name emerges. Last year, Raw Story reported on Zinke’s connections to white supremacists in Whitefish and the surrounding area. Zinke endorsed a white nationalist candidate for Montana statehouse in 2016, who ended up losing but later thanked Zinke for helping him appear more mainstream. This year, journalist Wayne Madsen reported that Zinkes’ two sons “were friends of former Whitefish resident Richard Spencer,” and that part of the reason Spencer moved his headquarters to Washington, D.C., after Trump’s election was to be closer to the Zinkes, as well as his friend Stephen Miller.

Madsen said via email that he “was told by those who’ve been to Whitefish that the Zinke boys ran with Spencer and his crowd.”

In case your head is spinning, here’s a recap: Whitefish Energy’s CEO knows Zinke; Zinke served in the same elite military branch as Erik Prince, who is now pushing Trump to contract a private militia based in Whitefish, which has emerged as a white nationalist hotbed in recent years and was the setting for a personal relationship between far-right extremists and Zinke’s own family. So much for the excuse that Whitefish is just a small town where “everyone knows everybody.” There are too many suspicious ties for Zinke’s PR team to get away with that one. Smells fishy to us.

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

Republicans Just Made It A Lot Harder For Restaurant Workers To Fight Big Chains

Republicans Just Made It A Lot Harder For Restaurant Workers To Fight Big Chains

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board, led by Trump appointee Philip A. Miscimarra, undid an Obama-era ruling that protected workers, including subcontractors, from labor law violations. In an unsurprising move, all three Republicans on the Board voted together to undo the rule, while the two Democrats opposed them.

“Frankly, it’s shocking,” Wilma B. Liebman, a former Democrat chairwoman of the Board, told the Times of the decision.

Back in 2015, the Board heard the case of an Iowa construction company, whose subcontractors went on strike to protest unsafe conditions and low wages and benefits. Those workers were fired in retaliation.

A local judge ruled the firings illegal, leading the National Labor Relations Board to declare in 2015 that the old joint-employer rule was “increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships.” They then changed the law so that a company would be responsible for illegal practices at all levels, including those that affect sub-contractors and employees at franchises.

This week the Board reversed that earlier decision, and the consequences for the fast-food industry could prove dire. For example, the person who makes your sandwiches at your local Subway could now be considered the responsibility of their direct franchise owner— not the Subway Group corporation itself. Now, if that sandwich maker and their coworkers protested an unfair practice at their location, it would be that much easier for the store owner to fire them, without consequence from the corporate higher-ups. The rule effectively protects corporations against any kind of legal action from lower-level employees.

As the Times describes, the vote is politically motivated, as corporations have been lobbying Republicans to reverse the Obama-era worker protection since it was enacted.

At its most fundamental level, the ruling highlights deep differences in philosophy between most Democratic and Republican members of the labor board. During the Obama administration, the board majority believed that the changing structure of the economy — in which employers have steadily pushed workers outside their firms and into a throng of contractors, franchises and staffing agencies — required updating doctrine to stay true to the intent of labor law…

By contrast, the ruling Thursday from the Republican-led board argued that its predecessors had been guilty of “upending decades of labor law precedent and probably centuries of precedent in corporate law” with no mandate from Congress to do so.

It’s worth noting that the National Labor Relations Board was created in 1935 by President Roosevelt with the express intent of protecting American workers from being taken advantage of by their employers. But today’s Republican-dominated Board wants to slow the pace of progress, despite that fact that more corporations are increasingly trying to shirk responsibility for their workers by labelling them as contractors.

The Times also explains that the reversal endangers workers who want to join a union:

The reversal could also affect the ability to unionize in the first place. A company is free to fire a contractor or end a franchise arrangement if it suspects that workers are on the verge of unionizing. But there could be legal liability for doing so if the company is a joint employer of workers with the contractor or franchisee.

This isn’t the only Obama-era worker protection that could be reversed under this Republican-majority labor board. Also on the chopping block are “rulings that made it easier for smaller groups of workers within a company to unionize, that gave workers access to a company’s email network for organizing purposes, and that conferred a federally protected right to unionize on graduate students at private universities.”

H/T The New York Times

 

Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.

 

The GOP’s 10 Biggest Social Media Blunders Of 2017

The GOP’s 10 Biggest Social Media Blunders Of 2017

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

It’s hard to avoid the yearly recaps that spring up every December. From the ubiquitous lists of celebrity deaths to recaps of the top Twitter hashtags, countdowns are everywhere as the new year approaches. But it’s worth considering another one, for no other reason than that 2017 has left many of us fatigued by the GOP’s atrocious behavior and numb to ongoing offenses. The following Republican social media blunders range from amusingly bizarre to those that painfully reveal the true cruelty of GOP leaders.

Let’s start with the more humorous gaffes, because let’s face it, it’s been a rough year and we could all use a laugh.

  1. The timeDonald Trump Jr. posted this weird-as-hell photoshopped magazine coverdisplaying his dad (in a beard? why?) winning Time’s Person of the Year.
  2. Ivanka repeatedly misspelled words.

Despite her privileged education at Georgetown and Wharton, Ivanka Trump continuously embarrassed herself this year by misspelling and misusing wordslike “albeit,” “juxtaposition,” “relative,” and most ironically, “complicit.”

  1. This photo-op of Steve Mnuchin and his wife.

Credit: Twitter.com/darinself

They look like the king and queen of cluelessness. After Steve Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, posed with a newly minted sheet of money, they were accused of looking “like Bond villains.” “Perhaps it was Linton’s sharp stare and long black gloves,” the Washington Post said. “Clad in all black, Linton clasped the sheet of money the way a royal might hold her hand to be kissed.” It’s an apt comparison, considering another Mnuchin moment…

  1. The time Mnuchin’s wife posted this photo and then ranted on Instagram about her ‘self-sacrifice’ to the American economy.

Credit: Instagram.com/LouiseLinton

After Louise Linton posted a glamorous shot of herself and her husband exiting a private plane on Instagram, a commenter noted that taxpayer dollars allow for their first-rate travel. Linton lashed out in the comments section: “Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes or in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours.”

  1. Ted Cruz ‘likes’ porn.

Between Trump’s vicious tweets and the so-called alt-right getting a huge boost from the platform, many of us had moments this year when we wished Twitter didn’t exist. So it was only fair that we got a little gift from the social media site in 2017 in the form of Ted Cruz’s account “liking” a porn page.

  1. Trump couldn’t spell ‘heal.’

Credit: The Sun

After white supremacists marched in Boston and were drowned out by massive counter-protests, it took Trump three tries to correctly spell the “heal” in “we will heal.”

  1. Covfefe

Who can forget Covfefe-gate? Trump supposedly meant to type the word “coverage.” Instead, he gave us a typo for the history books.

Then there were the uglier, less funny, but equally cringeworthy social media moments of 2017.

  1. Few of Trump’s Twitter rants from 2017 made his defenders squirm more than his takedown of Morning Joe.In particular, his vile claim that he once saw showhost Mika Brzezinski “bleeding badly from a facelift” angered many.
  2. Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore.

    His claim that “we need” child-molester and racist Roy Moore in the Senate stands as one of the worst statements to come from the president this year. But Trump’s spinning of the Alabama election into a push for his dreadful tax cuts, and his pinning the blame on Democrats in Congress turns, this tweet into a three-in-one sucker punch to respectability in politics. Not that there’s much left.

     

    10. Roy Moore challenged Jimmy Kimmel to a standoff.

    Finally, while we’re saying our goodbyes to Roy Moore’s domination of the news cycle, let’s not forget the time he appeared to challenge comedian Jimmy Kimmel to a duel via tweet. So modern, yet so archaic and patriarchal at the same time.

     

    Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.