Thanks for the good followup, Bob - this is much more what I've come to expect from your earlier work, and helps to ease my concerns from last week.
However, I think you may need to reconsider one paragraph that seems to be factually incorrect, and may indicate some motivated reasoning on your part:
"...elected Republicans don’t think Q has any insight or that the 2020 election was really stolen. The public at large surely doesn’t. Still, the Trumpian nihilism is supported and maintained by his strong base of support, a base that terrifies nearly all elected Republicans. "
All the polls we keep hearing about (from both the conservative and liberal media outlets) are consistently telling us that a majority of rank-and-file Republicans do believe that the election was stolen, and a substantial number of Republican voters do believe in much of what the Q delusions are saying. This seems to be the base that is terrifying all elected Republicans - as well it should.
The fantasies of a majority of the Republican party appear to me to be a significant threat to the stability of the nation as a whole, at least as long as the elected GOP elites remain so terrified of their own supporters.
As a thoughtful moderate, I am very open to hearing more about how you, as a thoughtful conservative, will be moving forward in your political advocacy.
And as the son of a Christian minister who answered the call and marched with MLK in Selma, I have hope that the path you choose will be one I can support.
Sorry, but I don’t see an error. Maybe you could point it out?
I don’t think *elected* Republicans (beyond the “Crazy Caucus”) think the election was stolen or that Q is anything but nonsense. They have essentially all carefully avoided making that sore of assertion. With respect to the rest of the paragraph you question, this poll for CNN seems representative re Q: https://www.prri.org/research/qanon-conspiracy-american-politics-report/
Re Q, just 15% of all Americans think it’s valid. That’s why I think it’s fair to say the public at large thinks Q is nonsense.
Re the election: 25% think it was stolen, and they are almost all Republicans (56% of Republicans think it was stolen, but I readily acknowledge that the base is all-in). That’s hardly support for the idea that the public at large thinks it was stolen.
It may be a semantic difference over your use of the term "public at large" (your thesis is quite clear that interpretation is important). Your reply indicates that your are using the term to denote a majority of the public. While this is not an incorrect definition, it is only one of several choices, and I originally read the term to mean a large portion of the public.
And 25% of all Americans is, to me, a large portion of the population. In 2020, the US population was 331 million. The Census reflects that 67% of the population is 18 or older (221.7 million), so 25% of that number is 55.4 million people who believe the election was stolen, and 15% of that number is 33.2 million people.
I agree that this is not a majority, by any means. But for me, it is a very worrisome number of my fellow Americans who believe things that you and I both think are "crazy". And as your IPSOS polling source points out in question 8, 42% believe that "Political or religiously-motivated domestic terrorism committed by Americans on American soil" poses the biggest threat to the safety of average Americans, while another 42% believe that "Random acts of violence committed by Americans on American soil" is the biggest threat.
If my mathematical logic is correct (which is never certain) that means that approximately 84 %, or 186.2 million people, in the US believe that violence on Americans by Americans is a threat to their safety.
Thus, in my view, 25% of Americans believe "crazy" things (to use your term), and 42% of Americans believe that a significant fraction of those (the Q 15% at least) are willing to take extraordinary steps, including violence, to get their way.
When violence threatens, reason retreats. I do not see the GOP leadership taking conspicuous steps to ensure that the threat of politically or religiously-motivated violence diminishes. I do see them pandering, at both the state and the national level, to the 56% of their base that is crazy enough to believe that the election was "stolen".
Although I am a left-leaning moderate, I am a registered non-partisan voter who strongly believes that a healthy GOP operating as a loyal opposition is important to the future of our country. But I do not see a healthy GOP, and there appears to me to be good cause to doubt, in too many cases, their loyalty to our democratic institutions.
This is what I see as a threat to the stability of the US. I read the blogs of conservatives like you who appear to retain their principles and devotion to American democracy. I'm looking for hope that this nation is still "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
While not specifically in support of my math (which I now see may have been quite wrong in places, although the errors don't really affect my point), this item I see from Noah Smith yesterday does speak quite clearly to your thesis of trust, and does so in what I think is a reasonably balanced way...https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/americas-scarcity-mindset
Thanks for the good followup, Bob - this is much more what I've come to expect from your earlier work, and helps to ease my concerns from last week.
However, I think you may need to reconsider one paragraph that seems to be factually incorrect, and may indicate some motivated reasoning on your part:
"...elected Republicans don’t think Q has any insight or that the 2020 election was really stolen. The public at large surely doesn’t. Still, the Trumpian nihilism is supported and maintained by his strong base of support, a base that terrifies nearly all elected Republicans. "
All the polls we keep hearing about (from both the conservative and liberal media outlets) are consistently telling us that a majority of rank-and-file Republicans do believe that the election was stolen, and a substantial number of Republican voters do believe in much of what the Q delusions are saying. This seems to be the base that is terrifying all elected Republicans - as well it should.
The fantasies of a majority of the Republican party appear to me to be a significant threat to the stability of the nation as a whole, at least as long as the elected GOP elites remain so terrified of their own supporters.
As a thoughtful moderate, I am very open to hearing more about how you, as a thoughtful conservative, will be moving forward in your political advocacy.
And as the son of a Christian minister who answered the call and marched with MLK in Selma, I have hope that the path you choose will be one I can support.
Sorry, but I don’t see an error. Maybe you could point it out?
I don’t think *elected* Republicans (beyond the “Crazy Caucus”) think the election was stolen or that Q is anything but nonsense. They have essentially all carefully avoided making that sore of assertion. With respect to the rest of the paragraph you question, this poll for CNN seems representative re Q: https://www.prri.org/research/qanon-conspiracy-american-politics-report/
Re Q, just 15% of all Americans think it’s valid. That’s why I think it’s fair to say the public at large thinks Q is nonsense.
Re the stolen election, I think this poll is representative: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-05/Ipsos%20Reuters%20Topline%20Write%20up-%20The%20Big%20Lie%20-%2017%20May%20thru%2019%20May%202021.pdf
Re the election: 25% think it was stolen, and they are almost all Republicans (56% of Republicans think it was stolen, but I readily acknowledge that the base is all-in). That’s hardly support for the idea that the public at large thinks it was stolen.
Where did I go wrong?
It may be a semantic difference over your use of the term "public at large" (your thesis is quite clear that interpretation is important). Your reply indicates that your are using the term to denote a majority of the public. While this is not an incorrect definition, it is only one of several choices, and I originally read the term to mean a large portion of the public.
And 25% of all Americans is, to me, a large portion of the population. In 2020, the US population was 331 million. The Census reflects that 67% of the population is 18 or older (221.7 million), so 25% of that number is 55.4 million people who believe the election was stolen, and 15% of that number is 33.2 million people.
I agree that this is not a majority, by any means. But for me, it is a very worrisome number of my fellow Americans who believe things that you and I both think are "crazy". And as your IPSOS polling source points out in question 8, 42% believe that "Political or religiously-motivated domestic terrorism committed by Americans on American soil" poses the biggest threat to the safety of average Americans, while another 42% believe that "Random acts of violence committed by Americans on American soil" is the biggest threat.
If my mathematical logic is correct (which is never certain) that means that approximately 84 %, or 186.2 million people, in the US believe that violence on Americans by Americans is a threat to their safety.
Thus, in my view, 25% of Americans believe "crazy" things (to use your term), and 42% of Americans believe that a significant fraction of those (the Q 15% at least) are willing to take extraordinary steps, including violence, to get their way.
When violence threatens, reason retreats. I do not see the GOP leadership taking conspicuous steps to ensure that the threat of politically or religiously-motivated violence diminishes. I do see them pandering, at both the state and the national level, to the 56% of their base that is crazy enough to believe that the election was "stolen".
Although I am a left-leaning moderate, I am a registered non-partisan voter who strongly believes that a healthy GOP operating as a loyal opposition is important to the future of our country. But I do not see a healthy GOP, and there appears to me to be good cause to doubt, in too many cases, their loyalty to our democratic institutions.
This is what I see as a threat to the stability of the US. I read the blogs of conservatives like you who appear to retain their principles and devotion to American democracy. I'm looking for hope that this nation is still "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Looking forward to the next installment...
While not specifically in support of my math (which I now see may have been quite wrong in places, although the errors don't really affect my point), this item I see from Noah Smith yesterday does speak quite clearly to your thesis of trust, and does so in what I think is a reasonably balanced way...https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/americas-scarcity-mindset