I was just reading an article about Germany and Europe in general. By just opening the floodgates terrorists are coming in. ISIS said they would flood the West with terrorists and they are. So what is wrong with suspending immigration for a short time? Pres. Carter did it to Iranians.

Why is no one whining and getting up in arms about the Christians and Muslims, who oppose ISIS in the Middle East, being tortured and killed yet are up in arms about Trump wanting to make sure tertorists do not get in. Yes, many are already here so we don’t need more.

In 2015 almost 12,000 Christians were murdered in the Middle East and 13,000 Christian churches destroyed. Where is the outrage for this ? Where is the outrage when an eight year old girl sets herself on fire so she will not be raped by Muslims?

Learn the truth.

Still, individual [Catholic] parishes are too much defined by “the big sort,” by which we divide ourselves into groups of similar race/class/ethnicity. Mormons are different. Our congregations are defined in ways that cut across these divisions.

uh, not in Utah they’re not. have you ever visited?

As for Trump in particular states. In New Hampshire Trump got 35.3%. In South Carolina he got 32.5%. Slightly low but not significantly so. There were some more detailed correlations but it seems Trump is pretty popular now so as time goes on I suspect the correlations will become less telling.

To what Trump wins, it’s hard to say. I expect Trump to make a big pivot to the left once he has the nomination wrapped up. I’m sure he’ll keep his immigration absolutism along with his more Putin like views on the press and the like. How much this will take from Democrats isn’t clear. Already there are quite a few reports of people, especially in Massachusetts switching parties so as to be able to vote for Trump. How much of that is cynical Clinton supporters trying to undermine the GOP and how much are sincere Trump fans I can’t say. While I think Trump will lose, I also think Democrats are significantly underestimating his attractiveness to a big segment of their base. To them Trump simply proves all the caricatures of the GOP they’ve held as crass anti-intellectual racists. I think they are underestimating how much of their base will find Trump compelling. Especially the lower skilled whites who’ve seen little recovery under Obama.

As for not doing the best in the south, you’re wrong. He’s doing best in places with strong black populations. The strongest correlation for Trump voting is Google search for “n-word.” Of course correlation isn’t causation. Does he merely appeal to people who happen to have more racists among them (perhaps due to being low-education low-income voters) or is there a causal factor? Hard to say. Interestingly there are in many ways similar correlation with Sanders supporters.
I don’t think Utah is as attractive for Trump if only because our views on race are quite different but also because our economy isn’t as focused on low skilled jobs. Especially for lost industries (the shutdown of Geneva Steel and slowdown in mining notwithstanding). That’s not to say there won’t be some caught up in the siren call of Trumpism. Some will – especially given the strong antigovernment thread in the GOP. I just think it’ll be less common than in the rust belt or south.

I don’t think Trump is about laying bare the tensions between those who have power and those who don’t. I don’t think he cares. I think he’s very much about cynically manipulating the anger of those who do worry about such things though.

Trump’s rise to me is completely due to the fault of cynical GOP leadership expediency. I knew the GOP was in trouble when back in the early days of the ACA they argued against it on the grounds Obama was cutting medicare. Effectively putting expediency above their ideas. Thereafter they ran on a “repeal and replace” platform but after nearly 8 years never came up with any serious replacement. (A few times some extremely vague ideas were put forth, but never seriously and no bill was ever put forward) At the same time GOP continued to ratchet up hyperbolic rhetoric on Obama that verged on the apocalyptic. I think it fair to say that even those who honestly disliked Obama’s policies were doing this for cynical reasons of engendering fear in the base to get votes. Surprise. The base paid attention and asked the obvious questions of why, if things were so apocalyptic, the people in congress weren’t acting like it once they were there. Expediency often involving outright lying and at best exaggerations have come home to roost. In many ways Trump is simply doing what the GOP has been doing the last decade only even more brazenly and cynically.

While I truly fear Trump, the reality is that the GOP has no one to blame but themselves. They did everything they could to build up a cohesive party but did it by focusing in on in-group rather than ideology and facts. Now they are paying the price. I’m a strong conservative but the leadership of the party has been horrific. And those attacking them have been just as cynical. Seriously, how could anyone view Cruz’ actions in congress as anything particularly different from Tump? They never were going to work and Cruz put the appearance of fighting above actual achievements. If you look at the protest votes since the fall it’s been Cruz, Carson and Trump dominating the party.

I don’t want to let voters off the hook of course. They are the ones allowing themselves to be bamboozled and accept all the hyperbole as facts. It’s not as if the information wasn’t there. And of course the press is also deserving of a lot of blame in this. While the press reports the facts it focuses on the circus. Worse, people notice when the press is biased and misleading. Even if the amount of press mistakes and bias is exaggerated, the mistake and emphasis is noticed by the public. There’s a reason people don’t trust the press anymore.

All in all though we’re left with the current situation which is a disaster. There’s plenty of blame to go around to leadership, politicians, the press, and voters. However the reality is Trump will likely sweep the nomination, Clinton will win the election candidly, and the courts will take a dominate liberal stance over the next 4 years.

How this all affects Mormons and Utah isn’t clear. It’s not clear what the breakdown of Trump, Cruz and Rubio support in Utah by religion. It’s not clear how Mormons will react to the breakdown of the GOP this summer. There’s too many unknowns for me to really comment on.

There’s a fair bit written on this. Atran, who wrote the excellent evolutionary psychology analysis of religion In Gods We Trust has done some work on this identity politics as well that’s worth reading.

I think you can see this in Mormon politics as well. When Mormons shifted from being Democrats to being Republicans they tended to adopt the policy preferences of the GOP even if perhaps they weren’t always well suited for traditional Mormon views. The shift tended to happen over economic freedom and moral issues yet you then see Mormons adopting straight Republican views in odd ways.

This isn’t necessarily at odds with what Ben is saying. He’s just looking at tribalism based upon certain markers like ethnicity or skin color. I’m not sure that’s necessarily all that’s going on since I think the peer effect of Mormons being overwhelmingly Republican is a kind of political tribalism not unlike how African Americans tend to be Democrats.

There are those on the Democratic/liberal side who exaggerate the problem of racism in the US and make baseless provocative claims to attract the attention of uninformed masses. That is tribal politics, or identity politics. However, seasoned evidenced observations about racism and possible solutions to it is not tribal/identity politics.

Similarly on the Republican/conservative side, some stoke the fears of uninformed masses about hyperinflation, immigrants, and the supposed dangers of gay marriage without providing solid evidence to back their claims. This is tribal politics. They flash signals that garner quick attention of the uninformed passionate masses, but do little to address these issues in a way that is consistent with evidence. However, genuine concern about inflation, immigration, and gay marriage with a body of solid evidence and an open mind to hear opposing views is not.