* The Republican coalition has traditionally been made up of corporate CEO’s, military hawks and white evangelicals. Since Trump’s election, the relationship with the first two has been challenged a bit. With the president’s remarks yesterday about the events in Charlottesville, things are coming unglued. Here’s what happened with some prominent CEO’s:
Two of President Donald Trump’s councils of top business leaders are disbanding following Tuesday’s controversial remarks by the president about the weekend’s violence in Virginia.
Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was ending the White House council on manufacturing and the Strategic and Policy Forum.
One of the councils had planned to disband after a conference call of its executives on Wednesday morning, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Trump’s tweet came after reports that council was disbanding.
* Here’s what happened with military leaders:
One by one, the U.S. military’s most senior leaders have publicly — and bluntly — repudiated the racist violence that plunged Charlottesville into chaos Saturday, declaring the nation’s armed forces as being unequivocally against hatred.
By midmorning Wednesday, the military’s four service chiefs had issued firm, forceful statements that stand apart from remarks made by President Trump, who faces deepening criticism for his repeated attempts to evenly distribute blame for clashes between white nationalists and the anti-fascist protesters who showed up to oppose them.
* The one group that seems to be standing firm with the president is white evangelical leaders.
Finally a leader in WH. Jobs returning, N Korea backing down, bold truthful stmt about #charlottesville tragedy.So proud of @realdonaldtrump
— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) August 16, 2017
* Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, weighed in as well.
Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor and a top evangelical ally to President Trump, appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “Faith Nation” program this morning to defend Trump’s unhinged press conference yesterday afternoon in which the president blamed “both sides” for the violence that occurred at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, recently.
Jeffress began by denouncing white supremacists and neo-Nazis before insisting that Trump was correct to spread the blame around because “if we’re going to denounce some racism, we ought to denounce all racism.”
By connecting “both sides” to “all racism,” Jeffress is suggesting that those who were protesting against white supremacy are racist too.
* Matthew Dowd summed things up in regards to this group of Trump supporters.
* Earlier this week I explored the question of why racial hatred is in the process of exploding. Dan Santat put part of the answer into graphic form.
HISTORY OF US PRESIDENTS: pic.twitter.com/6mc0JCwdf6
— Dan Santat – The Fresh Prince of Pasadena? (@dsantat) August 15, 2017
* Alexandra Guisinger writes that “Americans’ views of trade aren’t just about economics. They’re also about race.”
Conventional wisdom suggests that voters support trade protection when they think it is in their economic interest. Many news outlets have provided helpful lists of which U.S. jobs would be helped or hurt by limits on imports.
But this conventional wisdom misses a key fact: Most Americans — over 70 percent in my surveys — either say that trade doesn’t affect their employment or that they don’t know whether it does…
Many Americans support trade protection because of a pervasive belief that trade harms others in the country. More than 60 percent of respondents in my surveys say that trade hurts employment for other Americans. The whiteness of those “others” who might benefit from trade protection matters for white Americans’ support of more restrictive trade policy.
* Finally, if you haven’t already watched the VICE News report on events in Charlottesville over the weekend, please take a few moments to do so. This is the definition of must-see TV.
