CT Blue

Today we learned, and its does not come as a shock, that 53% of Republicans think Trump is a better president than Lincoln. This is no surprise inasmuch as the Republican Party is now the American Nazi party, and Lincoln is not exactly a favorite of racists. After all, he bears a lot of responsibility for the 13th Amendment, among other things. The real surprise is that 47% of Republicans disagree with their racist brethren.

There may be a bit of good news, mathematically speaking, behind this outrageous statistic. This postat the Palmer Report comes close, but I think there may be more to it. Palmer says:

There are roughly 32 million registered Republicans in the United States. 53% of that is roughly 17 million. So we’re talking 17 million people, out of the 250 million Americans who are of voting age. In other words, this poll tells us that not much more than 5% of Americans think Trump is a better president than Lincoln. Even if you want to quibble with registration numbers, you’re still going to end up with a single digit number.

That’s right so far as it goes, though he implicitly rejects the possibility that there may be some Independents and even (shudder) Democrats who agree with their racist fellow citizens.

But I suspect there’s even more to it. As I understand it, pollsters rely on self-reporting to determine a person’s political affiliation. If one called me I could tell him or her that I was a Republican, and that’s how they’d rank me. I think we may be seeing something of a reverse Bradley effect here. Many registered Republicans may be rejecting the label.

Let’s start out by stipulating that pretty much every American knows that Lincoln is considered the greatest president in American history, and it requires a special blend of stupidity and racism to tell anyone, even a complete stranger, that you think the very stable genius is superior to the ultimate American icon. The fact that 53% of self identified Republicans are that racist and stupid tells me that the number of people who self identify as Republicans is decreasing. After all, you can be a registered Republican and no longer consider yourself a Republican when the pollster calls. My wife and I have acquaintances who were registered Republicans for years who just recently switched, provoked wholly by the genius. They are by no means unique and I think it’s quite likely that lots of registered Republicans no longer identify as Republicans, though they haven’t gotten around to switching or don’t see the need to do so.

So I think that one thing this poll reveals is the extent to which the rational are being squeezed out of the Republican Party like toothpaste out of a tube. Okay, so the switchers apparently don’t eat at diners, at least not so as the New York Times can find them, but they’re out there, particularly in the suburbs.

I realize that the above is absolutely inconsistent with my normal cynicism, but as the good poet said: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself”.