Obama to Trump Voters
People who voted for Obama in 2012 and for Trump in 2016, about 5.7 million voters, played an essential role in Trump’s victory. A research paper by Stephen Morgan and Jiwon Lee explore the characteristics of these voters. While their research focuses primarily on white non-Hispanic “crossover” voters they also discuss the characteristics of white non-Hispanic voters who did not vote in 2012 but voted for Trump in 2016. The authors also generate some comparisons between these two sets of voters and Romney-Trump voters.
Cross-pressured voters are those voters who are subject to conflicts and inconsistencies in whom to vote for.… Read the rest
A Social Revolution?: Brown v. Board of Education I
After several racial barriers were dropped post-WWII, minority groups, particularly in the North, became increasingly politicized. Congress, however, expressed no concern about such politicization. Relative to the administration, Eisenhower in eight years would never offer a word of support for desegregation. Thus civil rights attorneys began arguing against the separate but equal doctrine. The Sweatt decision (see earlier post) prompted a focus on public schools. The Court eventually decided to hear five public school cases simultaneously. The NAACP was significantly involved in all five cases.
The five cases comprising Brown v. Board of Education
In the 1952 term of the Court, a decision on separate but not equal facilities, Briggs v.… Read the rest
Aquinas: Truth-Telling as a Moral Virtue
I recently came across a paper on Thomas Aquinas and truth-telling and wondered whether a medieval theologian/philosopher could say anything to an increasingly post-truth world. The author of the paper, Fainshe Ryan, quotes some lines from Michiko Kakutani’s book, The Death of Truth: “…cynicism and weariness and fear can make people susceptible to the lies and false promises of leaders bent on unconditional power. As Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, ‘The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e.… Read the rest
U.S. Census and Voter Suppression? (1 of 2)
A recent University of Memphis Law Review article fleshes out how routine U.S. Census undercounting or possible miscounting facilitates voter suppression and gerrymandering. The article, by Molly Danahy and Danielle Lang, provides context to the recent controversy over the proposed addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. Census.
The authors beleive the Census undercounts and distorts the representation of minority communities and has done so throughout its history. Some of the reasons for this concern the ongoing problem of counting hard-to-count populations and how the Census deals with prison populations. This post focuses on “prison gerrymandering.” The next post will cover census undercounting.… Read the rest
A Social Revolution?
Because Brown II focused solely on implementation the arguments in the Court demonstrated attention to detail. The Supreme Court and the lower federal courts were equity courts. This gave them a wide range of options to fashion remedies. The issue of time became a key area of concern. Suggestions regarding time ranged from an immediate decree for action to a decree with no fixed date for the end of segregation.
Court arguments
The opening argument before the Court dealt with the Virginia and South Carolina cases. The civil rights attorney representing the Negroes called for desegregation as soon as the necessary administrative procedures could be implemented.… Read the rest
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