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President Donald Trump says his base of support is bigger and stronger than ever before. But his claim is contradicted by a steady stream of recent polling showing that the share of Americans who approve of Trumps job performance is shrinking, along with the share of Americans most enthusiastic about his presidency.

However you measure the presidents base, it has diminished, not increased, in the seven months hes been in office. Its a slide hell need to reverse to avoid dragging down the GOP in the midterms and to have a more credible shot at reelection.

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A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows Trumps approval rating slipping to the lowest point of his young presidency. While hes confounded the polls before, its the trendline that should be most worrisome to the White House.

Only 40 percent of registered voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, the new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows, down from a high-water mark of 52 percent in March. And the percentage who approve strongly one way to measure the size of Trumps most fervent supporters is also at a new low: just 18 percent.

That fits with other surveys conducted over the past few weeks, all of which show Trump at or near the low-water marks for each pollster. And there is evidence Trumps backslide has eroded some of his electoral base: The president has lost ground with Republicans and the independent voters that propelled him to victory.

Trumps approval rating among self-identified Trump voters is at 81 percent, down from 86 percent last week. And among Republican voters in the new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, the president is at 76 percent, down slightly from 79 percent last week.

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A closer look at those Trump voters who approve of the presidents job performance shows that the Trump base isnt even closer together, as the president said on Twitter this week. Among Trump voters who approve of his job performance, they are equally divided between those who approve strongly, and those who approve only somewhat.

Overall, just 41 percent of voters who say they supported Trump last year strongly approve of the job he is doing, equal to the 41 percent who approve only somewhat. Ten percent of Trump voters disapprove of his job performance somewhat, while 7 percent strongly disapprove.

"Unabated by the turbulence of the last six months, there remains a core base of ardent Trump supporters," said Morning Consult co-founder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp. "However, that base has unquestionably declined since the president took office. In late January, 56 percent of Trump voters strongly approved of the president, and just 1 percent disapproved. Today, 41 percent strongly approve, and 17 percent disapprove."

Trump isnt bringing converts into his base, either, the poll shows. Among voters who say they backed Hillary Clinton last year, more than 3 in 4, 78 percent, strongly disapprove of Trump. Only 8 percent of Clinton voters even somewhat approve of Trump.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted Aug. 3-6, surveying 1,992 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The ongoing contraction of Trumps base has accelerated over the past month. Those trends show Trumps approval rating has fallen because certain segments of Republicans and independents have soured on him.

In a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll a month ago, Trumps overall approval rating (46 percent) and strongly approve rating (24 percent) were about 6 points higher than in the current survey. But over the past month, Trump has lost 7 points in strong approval among Republicans and 6 points among independents, compared to just 1 point among Democrats. Trumps strong approve number has dropped 8 points among voters who said they supported him in the 2016 election, from 49 percent to 41 percent.

Its not only the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that shows Trump fading during his first summer in office. Separate surveys from CNN (38 percent approval), CBS News (36 percent), Gallup (37 percent), Quinnipiac University (33 percent), Investors Business Daily/TIPP (32 percent) and Rasmussen Reports (41 percent) show Trumps approval ratings either at or within a few percentage points of his low-water marks.

And in each of them, there are warning signs about the size and enthusiasm of Trumps base. In the CNN poll which was conducted by SSRS, the networks new polling partner the percentage of Americans who strongly approve of Trump contracted to 24 percent, compared to 30 percent and 33 percent in CNN/ORC polls in early March and early February, respectively. In the Quinnipiac poll, Trumps strong approval number contracted from 28 percent in late June to 23 percent now.

The Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll notes that Trump has lost significant ground with core groups over the past month. Trumps approval rating is down 12 percentage points since July among Republicans, even as it was relatively unchanged from already-low records among Democrats and Republicans. Trumps decline in the Midwest (minus-7 points) is larger than the overall 5-point drop in his approval, as was his 7-point dip among white men.

In the CBS News poll, there are signs it could be difficult for Trump to recover, even as he touts continued economic growth in his first six months in office. Asked to choose which is more important in evaluating Trump the culture and values that you believe in or your economic and financial well-being 48 percent say culture and values, while only 37 percent say their economic and financial well-being is more important.

The presidents response to these surveys so far suggests he doesnt believe them and hes sought to discredit the results among the public.

After 200 days, rarely has any Administration achieved what we have achieved..not even close! Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon, adding in a second sentence, Don't believe the Fake News Suppression Polls!

Earlier in the week also on Twitter Trump cited recent campaign rallies in [Pennsylvania], Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia as evidence that his supporters were still with him.

The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs ... Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together, Trump tweeted. Will never change!

But inside Trumps own White House, there does seem to be some acknowledgment of the presidents falling poll numbers, even if the chief executive insists that they are fake.

His approval rating among Republicans and conservative[s] and Trump voters is down slightly, Kellyanne Conway, a former Republican pollster currently serving as counselor to the president, said on ABCs This Week on Sunday. It needs to go up.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents Toplines: http://politi.co/2vBT18w | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2vN6Sct

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Read more from the original source:
Trump hits new polling low as base shrinks - Politico

The tensions escalated this spring, when PayPal restricted the accounts of several prominent far-right figures, including Hunter Wallace, a white nationalist blogger, and Kyle Chapman, an alt-right personality known as Based Stickman. In a statement, PayPal said that its policy was not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance.

A similar fight occurred in July when Patreon and GoFundMe, two crowdfunding sites, banned several accounts associated with the alt-right. One of them was used by Lauren Southern, a Canadian activist and journalist who made a name for herself with inflammatory stunts like disrupting a refugee rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea. Patreon banned Ms. Southerns account after deciding that her activities were likely to cause loss of life, but emphasized that it was the nature of Ms. Southerns work, not the political views behind it, that had violated its terms.

The decision to remove a creator page has nothing to do with politics and ideology, Jack Conte, Patreons chief executive, said in a YouTube video about the incident.

Some company decisions are more explicitly political. At Airbnb last week, the company discovered that several writers and activists affiliated with The Daily Stormer, a white supremacy website, had used its website to book lodging for a right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., and were planning to use rented houses as after-party venues. Airbnb officials canceled the bookings and deleted the users accounts, saying that the gatherings violated the companys community commitment.

YouTube, which hosts a thriving community of right-wing personalities and, not coincidentally, is owned by Google has come under particularly aggressive criticism from conservative activists, who have accused the site of placing them in a ghetto by suppressing their videos.

This month, YouTube announced a new slate of content policies that subjected controversial religious or supremacist content to additional restrictions, including hiding those videos from user recommendations. The policies did not explicitly mention any political ideology, but conspiracists at sites like Infowars and Breitbart cried foul, claiming that YouTubes true intent was to stop the spread of right-wing views. One far-right journalist, Mike Cernovich, announced on Twitter that he was planning a protest outside Googles offices.

Were just doing what the left has done for a while, Mr. Cernovich told me. You use activist tactics to apply pressure to corporations, and the corporations respond.

Its a tech companys right, of course, to bar whomever it wishes. The First Amendment, often cited by right-wing activists as a bulwark against censorship, does not apply to the activities of companies, and tech companies almost always have terms in the fine print that give them the right to cut off access to users for any reason.

But the latest wave of right-wing activism has still forced the hands of large Silicon Valley companies, many of which have tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship even as they promote progressive values.

The alt-right isnt necessarily wrong when it claims, as its followers often do, that Silicon Valley is steeped in social liberalism. These are companies that emerged out of Bay Area counterculture, that sponsor annual floats in gay pride parades and hang Black Lives Matter signs on the walls of their offices. Silicon Valleys policy preferences arent always liberal, but tech executives routinely side with progressives on hot-button social issues like immigration, the Paris climate accords, and President Trumps recent decision to bar transgender people from military service. In todays political climate, these are partisan positions, and its no big shock that they have drawn suspicion from the other side.

There is a certain poetic justice in the alt-right, largely an internet-based political movement, turning against the companies that enabled it in the first place. Like most modern political movements, the alt-right relies on tech platforms like YouTube and Twitter to rally supporters, collect donations and organize gatherings. In that sense, Silicon Valley progressivism isnt just an ideological offense to the alt-right its an operational threat.

In an attempt to build a buffer against censorship, some alt-right activists have begun creating their own services. Cody Wilson, who describes himself as a techno-anarchist, recently opened Hatreon, a crowdfunding site that bills itself as a free-speech alternative to Patreon. Gab, a Twitter clone, was started last year after Twitter banned several conservative users. RootBocks, a right-wing Kickstarter knockoff, bills itself as a crowdfunding site that wont shut you down because of your beliefs.

These companies are still tiny by Silicon Valley standards, but their supporters say that one day they could serve as the foundation for a kind of parallel right-wing internet where all speech is allowed, no matter how noxious or incendiary.

Its unlikely that any alt-right protest will make a dent in the bottom lines of multibillion-dollar Silicon Valley behemoths. But by forcing these companies to take sides in an emerging culture war, these activists have already achieved a kind of perverse goal. They have found a new punching bag, and they have proved that in the hyper-polarized Trump era, there is no such thing as neutrality.

See the rest here:
The Alt-Right Finds a New Enemy in Silicon Valley - New York Times

By Martese Johnson and Aryn Frazier By Martese Johnson and Aryn Frazier August 8 at 3:17 PM

Martese Johnson graduated in 2016 from the University of Virginia with a bachelors degree in Italian studies. Aryn Frazier graduated from U-Va. this year with a bachelors in African American and African studies. In March 2015, Johnson, who is African American, was bloodied during an arrest outside a Charlottesville bar that drew widespread attention amid national debate about race and law enforcement. Frazier was a leader in the U-Va. Black Student Alliance and participated in protests over how Johnson was treated. Here, the two alumni write about a rally expected in Charlottesville on Saturday.

In early July, an estimated 50 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down the streets of Charlottesville. They were met by the fierce resistance of nearly 1,000 protesters who openly denounced the vitriol and hatred for which the Klan stands. The appearance of Klansmen dressed in white robes shouting epithets in the progressive college town made headlines across the nation.

This week, an even larger contingent of white nationalists will descend on the picturesque city for the Unite the Right Rally. The presence of major alt-right leaders will probably bring even more media spotlight and news coverage than did the rally in July.

But it shouldnt.

This is not because blatant demonstrations of hate no longer matter in 2017 the rationale is actually quite the opposite.

The very existence of the KKK, the hatred for which it stands, and the vitriol that its members spew is absolutely important. It is important because it reminds people that, for as far as weve come and as many minds as have been changed, we still have quite a long way to go. The Klans sustained existence is important because it challenges us to be vigilant in our beliefs and to find inventive, invigorating ways to disseminate our messages about the civil and human rights work this country still has left to do. Its existence keeps us alert to both present and lurking dangers.

However, the diminished Klan itself is not what worries us. Instead, we are concerned about their ideological heirs who hide in plain sight without the distinguishing hoods and robes who walk in and out of government buildings, lobbying firms, think tanks and corporations day in and day out.

These are the people at the root of our gravest concerns: disproportionate poverty, gentrification, housing and education inequity, and the killing and killing and killing of black and brown people.

During the July rally in Charlottesville, the media coverage centered on the fact that 50 people who marched in support of the Klan were met by opposition from many more people who were, frankly, demonstrating what ought be considered common human decency.

Such ephemeral coverage means that our deeply institutionalized, more pressing concerns cannot have the spotlight that they so desperately need. Instead, sensationalized stories about the re-emergence of the KKK become the primary focus of some of our activists, organizers and influencers who light up social media with impassioned if misdirected tweets highlighting how protesters outnumbered the KKK sympathizers.

While this may seem to convey that our recent attempts to combat racial injustice have proven ineffectual, that is far from the truth. The truth is that our newfound ability to create media-fueled grassroots movements has bolstered our likelihood of securing progressive change in this new era. We have gained a key strength from our efforts, and now it is time to properly utilize it.

We know what it takes to get news coverage. And this is where we get to the part the media has to play in this. There is much talk about responsible journalism these days and what exactly it looks like. An easy place to start is in Charlottesville on Saturday. Cover the alt-right march.

But the media should also cover the outcomes of the myriad town halls called to garner solutions to issues of racial injustice that either followed or preceded this most recent display of bigotry. Inform viewers of whether their elected and appointed officials are simply paying lip service to these causes and using time and money to seem as though they are addressing the problems everyday citizens and citizen-activists have brought to their attention, or if they are actually moving policy and practices to be more in line with equality and justice.

Without a major shift in the stories that are covered extensively, we will develop further into a society duped by distraction, rendered immobile by our indignation at the KKK and alt-right in Charlottesville instead of the true villains in our local, state and national politics.

The Ku Klux Klan and the alt-right, for all the individualized danger and trauma they represent and inflict, stands simply as a spawn of that real, quiet, but deadly injustice. By focusing on them, we are allocating our attention and resources to a pawn rather than the true enemy.

And that is not good for us any of us in the long run.

See more here:
Why the upcoming alt-right rally in Charlottesville may be less important than we think - Washington Post

The Google engineer who blamed biological differences for the paucity of women in tech had every right to express his views. And Google likely had every right to fire him, workplace experts and lawyers say.

Special circumstances from the country's divisive political climate to Silicon Valley's broader problem with gender equity contributed to the outrage and subsequent firing. But the fallout should still serve as a warning to anyone in any industry expressing unpopular, fiery viewpoints.

"Anyone who makes a statement like this and expects to stick around ... is foolish," said David Lewis, CEO of Operations Inc., a human resources consulting firm.

WHY HE LOST HIS JOB

The engineer, James Damore, wrote a memo criticizing Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for "alienating conservatives." The parts that drew the most outrage made such assertions as women "prefer jobs in social and artistic areas" and have a "lower stress tolerance" and "harder time" leading, while more men "may like coding because it requires systemizing."

Google's code of conduct says workers "are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination." Google's CEO, Sundar Picahi, said Damore violated this code.

Yonatan Zunger, who recently left Google as a senior engineer, wrote in a Medium post that he would have had no choice but to fire Damore had he been his supervisor.

"Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you?" he wrote . "I certainly couldn't assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face."

Though one might argue for a right to free speech, however unpopular, such protections are generally limited to government and other public employees and to unionized workers with rights to disciplinary hearings before any firing.

Broader protections are granted to comments about workplace conditions. Damore argues in a federal labor complaint that this applies to his case, but experts disagree.

"By posting that memo, he forfeited his job," said Jennifer Lee Magas, public relations professor at Pace University and a former employment law attorney. "He was fired for his words, but also for being daft enough to post these thoughts on an open workplace forum, where he was sure to be met with backlash and to offend his colleagues male and female alike."

UNIQUELY GOOGLE

The fallout comes as Silicon Valley faces a watershed moment over gender and ethnic diversity.

Blamed for years for not hiring enough women and minorities and not welcoming them once they are hired tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Uber have promised big changes. These have included diversity and mentoring programs and coding classes for groups underrepresented among the companies' technical and leadership staff. Many tech companies also pledge to interview, though not necessarily hire, minority candidates.

These are the sorts of things Damore's memo railed against.

As such, experts say Damore might not have been fired at a company that doesn't have such a clear message on diversity.

In addition, had Damore worked for a smaller, lesser-known company, an internal memo might not have created such a "media storm," said Aimee Delaney, a Hinshaw & Culbertson attorney who represents companies on labor matters.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

Still, bringing so much public, negative attention would spell trouble for any worker. That's especially so in this age of fast-spreading social media posts, when internal company documents can easily leak and go viral.

It didn't help that this was in the heart of Silicon Valley, where typing fingers are on 24/7 and people rarely disconnect from social media, even on a quiet August weekend. Or that Google is a brand consumers interact with all day and want to read about when memos go viral.

Perhaps the biggest lesson is this: Don't be so quick to post your angry thoughts for thousands, then millions, to see.

Michael Schmidt, vice chairman of labor and employment at the Cozen O'Connor law firm, said that while workers might have refrained from such remarks around the physical watercooler, "people treat ... electronic communications much more informally than face-to-face speech."

But the consequences are similar, if not more severe.

EXPLOSIVE CLIMATE

Initially shared on an internal Google network, the memo leaked out to the public over the weekend, first in bits and pieces and then in its 10-page entirety.

It took a life of its own as outsiders weighed in. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took to Twitter to offer Damore a job. One conservative group, Americans for Limited Government, criticized what it called Google's politically correct culture and left-wing bias. Others called for a Google boycott.

Known for its motto, "don't be evil," Google is broadly seen as a liberal-leaning company, something Damore criticized in his manifesto. Liberals and tech industry leaders came to Google's defense and denounced Damore's claims as baseless and harmful.

"It's fair to say that whatever side of the political aisle you are on, ... we are in a climate where we are dealing with very highly charged and emotional issues," Schmidt said. "And those issues are spilling into the workplace."

Instead of looking for a bright-line test on what is permissible, he said, "both sides need to understand there has to be a sensitivity to the bigger picture," a level of respect and cultural sensitivity across all demographics.

Read more:
Google gender debacle speaks to tech culture wars, politics - ABC News

Reverend Jesse Jackson speaks during a demonstration outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas ahead of the third presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. The debate, moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, will be the final meeting of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ahead of the November 8 presidential election. Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergDaniel AckerBloomberg

Call it the anti-diversity administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump is on course to reverse decades-old efforts to empower and protect minorities. Affirmative action policies at colleges and universities are being reviewed by the Justice Department. Trump supports curbs on immigration of non-English speakers and proposed a ban on transgender people in the military. He says its time to stop political correctness.

But civil rights advocates promise him a fight at every turn -- and a philosophically divided Supreme Court will likely be the final arbiter on the most contentious issues.

Trumps backers say the change in tone is welcome. "Diversity is a way of justifying discrimination -- hiring people based on their race, and thats a violation of federal law," said Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Thats what the prior administration wanted to ignore."

The effects are rippling across America, with workers stepping out and challenging companies policies on diversity. A Google engineer wrote a memo arguing that men were more suited biologically to work in tech than women, drawing support of Breitbart News -- the right-wing website that was run by Trumps chief strategist Stephen Bannon. Google fired the employee this week.

Conservative commentators like Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck, and websites including the Drudge Report and Breitbart have railed against political correctness for years. Whats new is that the culture warriors now have a backer in the highest office in the land against rights advocates.

We must stop being politically correct, Trump wrote on Twitter in June, criticizing the mayor of Londons response to a terror attack attributed to radical Islamists that left seven dead. If we dont get smart it will only get worse.

Trumps stance appeals to his mostly white base, which has felt left behind in a country where they will be a minority by mid-century. His policies are also a sharp rebuke to predecessor Barack Obama, the first black president, and a vocal advocate for diversity.

Trump "is showing a radical disregard for the civil rights accomplishments of the past 50 years," said Reverend Jesse Jackson, who marched in 1965 with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and organized the Rainbow Coalition in 1984. "All elements of inclusion are under attack. Its a countercultural revolution."

Although the majority of Americans say an increasingly diverse population is positive -- the percentage of whites has fallen from 84 percent in 1965 to 62 percent in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center -- there is a deep political divide. According to a Pew poll last year, 78 percent of Democrats agreed that immigrants strengthened the country -- compared with 35 percent of Republicans.

That division was particularly pronounced after Trump announced plans in January to ban entry to the U.S. to people from seven mostly Muslim countries. The move was backed by 81 percent of Republicans and only 9 percent of Democrats, according to a February Pew poll.

From executive orders to early morning tweets, Trump has used every means to get his anti-diversity message across. His administration is a reflection of his attitudes. Eighteen of the 24 cabinet members are white males. Thats a break from the trends of earlier presidents, who had increasingly surrounded themselves with more women advisers and people of different races. About a third of Obamas cabinet was composed of white men.

"This administration is signaling in not so subtle ways that were not as concerned about civil rights anymore," said Clayborne Carson, a Stanford historian who has spent most of his professional life studying King Jr. "The impact is that certain people are going to feel empowered to move in a different direction from the ideal of diversity."

When the Google engineer was fired, the free-speech platform Gab offered him a job, as CEO Andrew Torba said Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted.

The administration will have to fend off legal challenges to the presidents anti-diversity policies. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have sued to overturn Trumps actions, often with the support of coalitions of Democratic state attorneys generals.

President Trumps discriminatory policies arent just un-American -- in some cases, theyre unconstitutional, and well fight them every step of the way, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in an emailed statement.

The administration is also looking to the courts to further its agenda. The Justice Department intervened in an employment lawsuit, arguing that federal gender-discrimination laws shouldnt apply to sexual orientation, reversing course from the past decade of court rulings.

The U.S. Supreme Court, where justices are divided between conservatives and liberals, is already set to decide in October whether Trumps travel ban is constitutional. The make up of the court may change to become more conservative if members of the liberal wing retire in the next two years, as the challenges to Trumps policies wind through lower courts.

Even if some or all of these efforts fail to get off the ground or crumble in court, they send a message to Trumps base that the embrace of diverse groups that was a signature of the Obama administration is no longer a go.

More here:
How Trump's Policies Are Fueling the Culture Wars - TIME