Tag: news

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

“Putin’s America,” tweeted Anand Giridharadas, a pundit who was genetically engineered in a Monsanto laboratory to appeal to NPR listeners on every possible level.

Giridharadas used these words yesterday to caption a short video clip of two tanks being carted through the streets of DC in preparation for their appearance in a parade for Independence Day, a holiday in which Americans gather to eat hot dogs and drink Mountain Dew in celebration of the anniversary of their lateral transfer from monarchy to corporatist oligarchy.

The military hardware parade is taking place at the behest of President Bolton’s social media assistant Donald Trump, and critics have been vocally decrying it as alien and un-American. Pundits like Giridharadas and Steve Silberman have been saying it’s something Russia would do. The Independentsaid it’s a spectacle you’d see in “authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Iran and China.” Adam Best and Charles Pierce both likened it to something that would be done in a “banana republic”, an interesting choice of phrase for a gratuitous display of American military bravado given that term’s blood-soaked origins in US corporate colonialism.

All of these people are of course being ridiculous. There’s nothing alien or un-American about Trump’s parade at all. Jingoistic fetishization of the military is as American as a deep-fried trademark symbol.

Putin’s America. pic.twitter.com/27aN81jiRw

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) July 3, 2019

All this parade is, actually, is just one of the many, many, many many times over the last two and a half years that Trump has shown America its true face, and Americans haven’t liked what they’ve seen.

“That’s not my reflection!” the Americans scream at the mirror he holds up for them. “That’s Putin!”

“That’s not my reflection!” they protest. “That’s North Korea!”

“That’s not my reflection!” they say. “That’s a banana republic!”

No, America. That’s you. It’s been you all along.

This is the same country, after all, in which someone simply mentioning that they were in the armed forces often elicits a reverent “Oh, thank you for your service!” from whoever happens to hear them, as though spending four years protecting Raytheon profit margins and crude oil is something ordinary civilians should be grateful for. You guys know no other country does that, right? In Australia if you tell someone you were in the army they’ll tell you “Aww, bonza mate. I’m a plumber meself.” It’s not a thing, because when you’re not part of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization, powerful people don’t have nearly as much invested in making a thing out of it.

This is the same country where every second house and every single McDonald’s has its flag flying over it, a cult of idolatry that’s become so ubiquitous that a football player choosing to kneel instead of stand before that stupid piece of cloth generates national outrage. The same country where simply bleating “Support the troops!” or “Freedom isn’t free!” was in and of itself seen as a be-all, end-all debate-winning argument for the rape of Iraq. The same country that spent weeks on end mourning the death of bloodthirsty psychopath John McCain on the grounds that he’s a “war hero” when they should have loaded his heartless cadaver onto a trebuchet and launched it into the nearest tire fire as part of a telethon benefit for Syria.

All that’s considered perfectly normal by mainstream America, and liberals are getting their knickers in a knot over a few tanks and “Blue Angels” (another ridiculous yet perfectly normalized American spectacle)? Hell, it’s not even like Trump invented presidential parades full of instruments of mass military slaughter.

Check out this photo from JFK’s inaugural parade:

Or this one from Eisenhower’s:

Or this one from FDR’s:

And the fact that it’s mostly Democrats kvetching about this parade is especially absurd, given that in 2019 they’ve somehow managed to become even more hawkish and jingoistic than the Republicans. This is the same crowd that just the other day was attacking Trump for having the audacity to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the same crowd that’s constantly accusing Trump of being weak on Syria and Afghanistan, the same crowd that’s made heroes of the US intelligence community and the “grownups in the room” generals in the administration, and the same crowd that’s been shrieking hysterically for the last three years demanding greater and greater escalations against a nuclear superpower because something-something Putin’s cock holster. The biggest problem with Trump’s tank parade will be that male Democrats in attendance will have trouble hiding their erections.

Americans are the most aggressively propagandized people in the world, and US service personnel are the most aggressively propagandized people in America. That’s the group that all this special reverence and fetishization has been attached to: a bunch of kids who’ve been manipulated into killing and dying for plutocratic investments and the mommy-shaped hole in John Bolton’s heart. That’s what this parade is meant to manufacture even more support for in a culture that is saturated past the brim in a relentless barrage of war propaganda.

Face it, America. Trump’s tank parade isn’t in any way alien to anything you’ve ever stood for. The only way to make it more American would be to add a few monster trucks and a Kardashian. This parade is your reflection. This parade is you.

*  *  *

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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FONPSg Tyler Durden

Bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) aim to halt the use of Department of Defense (DoD) computer networks for downloading or distributing child porn. 

Hundreds of government employees were implicated as part of ICE’s 2006 “Operation Flicker” – which identified over 5,000 individuals who had used credit cards or PayPal to buy child porn, or subscribe to websites that offered the material. Of those, ICE identified 264 DoD employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online.

Nine of them had “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information” security clearances, while 76 of them held clearances of Secret or higher.

Here’s the kicker: Of those 264 DoD suspects, just 52 were investigated by the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), meaning the Bush administration willfully ignored over 200 suspected pedophiles working for the Defense Department. 

The new bill, The End Network Abuse Act will require the Pentagon to enter into contracts with groups which will be involved in the effort, including law enforcement, social services, child protection services and trauma-informed healthcare providers. It would also provide for additional training and technical expertise among military investigators, according to The Hill. 

The National Criminal Justice Training Center, one of the groups that has thrown its weight behind the bill, reported in 2018 that DOD’s network was ranked 19th out of almost 3,000 nationwide networks on the amount of peer-to-peer child pornography sharing.

Spanberger described the issues of child sexual exploitation and abuse as “horrific crimes.”

“The notion that the Department of Defense’s network and Pentagon-issued computers may be used to view, create, or circulate such horrifying images is a shameful disgrace, and one we must fight head on,” Spanberger said in statement. –The Hill

Rep. Meadows said that “peer-to-peer trading of child pornography is an unacceptable practice, and federal agencies cannot allow their networks to become a platform for it.” 

Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have introduced similar legislation in the Senate. According to The Hill, “A spokesperson for Spanberger told The Hill that while there are no set dates in either the House or Senate for marking up the bill, the sponsors are trying to pass it “both as individual bills and as amendments” to other legislative packages.”

Aside from raising awareness, however, the bills don’t appear to offer specific remedies to halt the child porn epidemic at the Pentagon. 

Perhaps instead Congress could divert some of its Russiagate energy to investigating the 200+ individuals who were given a pass nearly 20 years ago? Then again, that might not help anyone win the 2020 election. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XkAEi5 Tyler Durden

Via GEFIRA,

Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, who wanted to dethrone the dollar, paid for it with his own life.

Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein, who wanted to make settlements in a currency other than the US dollar, was hanged.

Now it is Russia and China, which want to do the same.

Just days ago an agreement was signed to this effect.

(i) Russia and China have decided to begin to make mutual settlements increasingly in their respective national currencies, and

(ii) they have decided to bypass the SWIFT system, introducing their own instead.

Moscow has also revealed lately that Russia has stopped using the US dollar and the SWIFT system for settlements in arms trade.

The exchange of goods between Russia and China is significant; Russian weaponry has a lot of clients around the globe. On the other hand both countries, and especially China, have large dollar reserves. And both states are under attack from the West, be it economic sanctions against Moscow, be it American trade war against Beijing.

To administer punishment for such a daring act was child’s play in the case of Libya and Iraq: the two countries were swiftly dealt with. What can one do with a nuclear superpower on the other hand and Asia’s largest economic tiger on the other?

If Washington has wanted to weaponize Moscow against Beijing or the other way round as it seems it has, then the strategists on the Potomac must swallow a bitter pill. The hybrid war waged against Russia in Georgia, Ukraine, Moscow, the Baltic States, Poland as well as in Venezuela and Syria rather than weakening the target state have cemented its embrace with the Middle Kingdom. The same effect was brought about by America’s trade war against and other unfriendly acts aimed at Beijing. Rather than subdue the two states, Western politicians pushed them into each other’s arms.

The financial world is witnessing the beginning of dedollarization. We had better become used to this term. Over seventy years after the initiation of the Bretton Woods international financial system that enthroned the dollar as a currency of international settlement (1944), and over forty years after the Jamaica Accords, which modified the former (1976), over twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the prime opponent of the United States, when it seems that history has run the full circle and has nowhere else to go, with humanity being about to enter a politically uni-polar world, the gauntlet has been thrown down by the ruble and the yuan to challenge the position of the greenback and the powers behind it. Will the three remaining BRICS countries (Brazil, South Africa and India) follow suit?

Admittedly, the US and EU economies have no rivals, but empires and superpowers have one characteristic: they can fall and disintegrate within months. World War One brought the total collapse of the German, Hapsburg, Russian and Ottoman Empires; the Cold War – the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Those events happened unexpectedly and swiftly.

Having the international currency in its hands, the United States has been doing all kinds of financial tricks, of which printing money out of thin air is just the best known example. Washington could keep other economies in constant dependence by limiting the availability or value of the dollar and also – as economists call it – by importing American inflation. Stripped of this tool, the US will be deprived of one of the powerful weapons in exacting obedience from foreign sovereigns.

Western economists comfort themselves with the idea that the plan forged by Moscow and Beijing is far from coming to fruition and hampered by so many objective factors that its success is most unlikely. Well, after the Second World War Americans were certain that the Soviet Union – due to the backwardness of its economy and the havoc wreaked by the hostilities – would only have its own A-Bomb in twenty or so years. It had within four, soon to be followed by the launching of the first satellite and putting the first man on the earth’s orbit.

Making settlements in national currencies, both Russia and China will gain more financial leeway. This kind of settlements can gradually be spread to the dealings with other countries. No doubt, Russian weapons, which are of high quality and desired by many countries, once they are sold in exchange for the ruble, will pave the way for turning Russia’s money from a convertible into an international currency.

China will be less dependent on the dollar. It will stop accumulating empty money and gain leverage in its dealings with the United States. The bargain chip? The volume of trade in the ruble/yuan. The less friendly attitude on the part of Washington, the larger the volume and vice versa.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JzYJN9 Tyler Durden

Earlier today, President Trump sparked a leftist meltdown by tweeting that reports of the demise of the citizenship question on the census were “fake”…

The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019

Questions immediately arose as to what legal strategy the administration would employ, given the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Immediately, groups challenging the question requested that Judge Jesse Furman, in New York federal court, hold an emergency hearing on the question’s status, citing the president’s tweet stating that the administration would continue to pursue adding the question to the 2020 census.

As The Hill notes,  Obama appointee Furman quickly obliged giving the Department of Justice until 6 pm on Wednesday to state their “position and intentions” on the citizenship question.

Shortly before 6pm, a Justice Department lawyer has now told a federal judge that the agency was asked to consider ways to salvage the question.

And so, The Hill reports that Joseph Hunt, an assistant attorney general with DOJ’s civil division, said Wednesday that:

…the department has been “instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow us to include the citizenship question on the census.”

We think there may be a legally available path under the Supreme Court’s decision. We’re examining that, looking at near-term options to see whether that’s viable and possible,” Hunt said, according to a transcript of a teleconference held in federal court in Maryland.

U.S. District Judge George Hazel gave the U.S. until Friday at 2 p.m. to definitely answer what it doing. Hazel, an Obama appointee, said during the call that he scheduled the conference in light of Trump’s tweet.

“I don’t know how many federal judges have Twitter accounts, but I happen to be one of them, and I follow the president, and so I saw a tweet that directly contradicted the position” the DOJ had given the day before, Hazel said, according to the transcript.

“I think I’m actually being really reasonable here and just saying I need a final answer by Friday at 2 p.m. or we’re going forward,” the judge said.

Finally, as National Review notes, two-thirds of voters support allowing the U.S. census to include a question about an individual’s citizenship status, disagreeing with the Supreme Court’s decision to block the question.

In a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released Tuesday, 67 percent of respondents said the question, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” should be allowed on the census. That number included about 88 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of Democrats, and 63 percent of independents agreed.

“The public here agrees with the administration that it makes sense to ask citizenship on the census,” said poll director Mark Penn.

“It is a clear supermajority of Americans on this issue.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XnKd4M Tyler Durden

Authored by Jack Rasmus via Counterpunch.org,

This past weekend, June 29, 2019 Trump and China president, Xi, met again at the G20 in Japan in the midst of a potential further escalating trade war. But the outcome looks eerily similar to that of the prior G20 meeting in Buenos Aires on December 2, 2018, when Trump and Xi also met.

Once more, the same post-G20 ‘spin is in’: i.e. Trump declares publicly he has such a great relationship with Xi. There’s a great trade deal soon forthcoming between the two countries. US and China trade teams will now begin to thrash out the details on the remaining 10% or so of US-China trade differences. In the interim, once again, Trump announced he will withhold imposing more tariffs (this time on an additional $325 billion of China imports to the US).  In other words, coming out of the latest G20 it’s almost an exact déjà vu all over again to the outcome which occurred at last December 2, 2018’s G20 meeting between Trump and Xi in Buenos Aires.

Will it be different this time? Will there by an agreement? Or will Trump once again just be buying time—i.e. until just before the 2020 elections? Until he sees China’s economy softening further and he raises US demands further again? Or maybe Trump and his neocon trade advisers—Lighthizer, Navarro, Bolton who are now driving US trade (and most of US foreign) policy—don’t want to compromise and will accept nothing less than China’s capitulation on the nextgen technology  issue that was at the core of the blow up of negotiations in May 2019?

It’s probably becoming increasingly clear to the Chinese that the US did not just launch a ‘tariff war’ back in March 2018.  US policy is driving toward a bonafide economic war between the US and China longer term.

In the nearer term, the current differences may well transform the ‘tariff’ war into a ‘currency war’ that will spread contagion and reverberate globally across other economies—at a time at which the global capitalist economy is slowing fast and approaching as well a new financial instability.  All China has to do is allow its currency, the Yuan-Renminbi, to devalue naturally in response to US policy and the slowing global economy. That  devaluation would more than offset US tariffs. Thus far, China has intervened in global money exchange markets to prevent this. But all it needs to do is allow it to occur according to prevailing economic and market forces and just not intervene in global money markets further to prop up the Yuan. That will become inevitable as the China, US, and global economy weaken further in coming months. China doesn’t have to manipulate its currency. It only has to allow global market forces, unleased in large part by Trump policies, to naturally devalue the Yuan.

Then there’s China’s $1.3 trillion of US assets, mostly US Treasuries. It could slow its purchase of new US government debt, which it appears it may now be doing.  Should the tariff-currency war intensify, if necessary it could stop or even sell off its dollar hoard of US Treasuries. It’s been moving toward that since September 2018, as its purchases of US securities first slowed and then declined in March 2019. That reduction of purchases, if not offset by other economies buying more, would drive up long term interest rates in the US and in turn the value of the US dollar still more—all of which further slows global growth.

Rising US rates and the dollar will likely precipitate another US  stock and junk bond sell-off, similar to that which occurred late 2018. And we know Trump doesn’t like stock market declines.

There are numerous other ‘actions’ the Chinese could take in response to US neocons intensifying or prolonging the US-China tariff-trade war, further driving the differences into a broader economic war. Various bureaucratic obstacles to US corporations’ majority ownership of operations in China, ‘buy China’ not America in China movements, restrictions on the sale of what’s called ‘rare earths’ minerals key to technology and military production would likely be imposed.  Even if US neocons don’t understand this, or don’t care, widespread business and banking interests do and could intervene more forcefully should Trump’s drift toward economic war continue.

Economic Slowdown & Recession ‘Wild Card’

And there’s a wild card in the trade war deck that may check the neocons influence perhaps. That’s the current softening of the US and China economies. That could force both sides to an agreement.  Trump may grab the major concessions on China purchases and US majority ownership rights in China and announce a big victory—just before the 2020 US elections.

China’s economy is clearly slowing, growing likely no more than 4%-5%, not the official 6.5%.  But so too is the US economy as well, which will start to become more obvious once the data for the 2nd quarter US GDP start to come in by late July.

The US 1st Quarter GDP numbers were propped up by temporary factors associated with inventory over-investment and net exports, both of which are fading rapidly this quarter. Moreover, US household consumer spending is barely growing, most recently at less than 1%. The housing sector has slowed for the past 17 months. Manufacturing orders and production is now stagnant and business investment has turned negative. Lagging indicators, like jobs, are now beginning to turn down as well.  The US Central bank’s lowering of interest rates in the second half of 2019, which is helping to drive the massive $1.5 trillion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts scheduled for this year, may succeed in putting a temporary floor under stock markets. But the real side of the US economy is being driven to slowdown, or even worse by year end. More bank research departments, big finance capitalists, and even some economists, a notorious conservative and timid forecasting lot, have begun to predict recession by year end 2019.

A more rapidly slowing US economy, now clearly beginning, may thus change the trade negotiations dynamic, forcing both sides to some kind of a deal.  And if the US slips into recession by winter 2019-20, which this writer has also been predicting the past year, the pressure to cut a deal will grow.

Trump may yet be convinced to take the China concessions already on the table—and temporarily suspend the US demand for China’s capitulation on the technology issue.  Trump could yet take what’s been offered by China—i.e. to buy $1 trillion more US farm goods and allow US corporations majority ownership of operations in China—and declare a major victory in the trade negotiations in 2020 just before the elections.  The nextgen tech-military confrontation—the real core of the US-China dispute—could be re-raised and revisited thereafter later.  That’s one possible scenario.  Because for Trump a ‘deal is never a deal’, it’s never concluded, but subject to reopening whenever he so chooses.

Breaking an agreement is standard practice for Trump.  Just ask the Mexicans, where Trump recently threatened to levy 25% more tariffs even after US concluding a new NAFTA 2.0 deal last year. Or ask the Iranians, who thought they had an agreement with the US. Or the Europeans who thought they had a Climate deal. For Trump, negotiations are a continuing process, punctuated by happy talk events stroking foreign leaders, followed by more threats of sanctions, and personal insults and intimidations, to force a reopening of deals once thought concluded by trading partners—allied and challengers alike.

In other words, even if a China-US trade deal is done, perhaps next year, the trade war with China will not be over. It will have just begun, as it evolves toward a broader ‘economic’ war after the 2020 elections, perhaps even before.

The key to a China trade deal occurring sooner. rather than later, is whether Trump and US big bankers and multinational capitalists can convince the neocons and the military industrial complex to agree to a short term deal with China now that provides only token nextgen technology concessions—backed by the Trump-Neocon assurance that the US will reopen and resume the technology offensive after the 2020 elections once again.

For the US economic and political elites are in basic agreement with the neocons behind the Trump daily circus on the nextgen technology issue. Neither will allow China to challenge US global hegemony next decade by leveraging nextgen technologies that are the key to both economic and military hegemony.  It’s just a question of timing by the US—elites, Trump, neocons.  Take two bites of the bargaining apple from the Chinese, and come back later for the big bite: i.e. the fight over nextgen technology. Either that or Trump and the Neocons will continue to insist on three bites all at once.

This writer’s guess and prediction is that the now slowing US and global economy will result in the former, and the US will reopen any deal reached and renew its technology demands after the 2020 elections.  For the current tariff-trade war is just the opening salvo in an epic struggle between the US and China.  The technology war has already begun, albeit in early stages. The Trump trade war today is just the opening move today to a more fundamental technology war tomorrow.

Historical Precedents

Just as European and American imperialists jockeyed and maneuvered in the years leading up to 1914 and the first world war, with their focus on disputes over markets and global natural resource control, in the 21st century the jockeying and maneuvering has similarly begun—albeit this time with a different focus on nextgen technologies, over who controls global money flows, whose currency will continue to dominant, over who calls the shots in global institutions like the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and so on.

The 2020s decade ahead will prove a highly dangerous period. The global capitalist economy is slowing, as has always done periodically.  A new restructuring of global capitalism is on the agenda, as it was in the late 1970s, in the mid-1940s, and during the years immediately leading up to 1914.

Trump’s trade wars and other policies should be understood as part of a broad reordering of US economic and political policies, and relations with other nation States allied and adversary alike, to ensure the continuation of US global economic and military hegemony for the coming decade.  Nextgen technology development is at the core of that restructuring and restoration of US hegemony. Trump is just the appearance, the historic vehicle, behind the deeper global capitalist transformation in progress.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XqA1Is Tyler Durden

President Donald Trump has continued to air concerns about Australian aluminum exports to the United States, once again reviving concerns that nearly let him to impose tariffs on the products about a month and a half ago, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The aluminum trade was a topic of conversation between Trump and Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week at the G-20 summit. The discussion highlighted Trump’s frustration at the strong increase in exports, which are up 350% in the first quarter of this year.

Trump then mentioned a “trade situation” with Australia in his public remarks but the concern about aluminum during the private talks was not revealed last week. Trump had agreed last year to an exemption from US tariffs on steel and aluminum after hearing arguments from former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Australian ambassador to Washington.

But it has been reported as recently as early June that US officials want the exemption on aluminum to be removed because the exports have grown so quickly. Trump’s trade advisors want the tariffs, but Defense Department and State Department officials cautioned against offending Australia.

Morrison had several talks with Trump when the two spoke during G-20 and Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said on Sunday he didn’t expect any change to the US treatment of Australian steel and aluminum. Birmingham said:

“The arrangements that were struck previously, we understand, will continue. We’re working to make sure that all aspects of those arrangements, including ensuring that there aren’t surges of Australian exports into the US in those categories where we’ve got the tariff exemption, are honoured. And we’re working closely with companies to deliver outcomes there that preserve that agreement, and we don’t expect to see, based on the discussions we’ve had, any changes to the terms of that agreement.”

And despite concerns being raised again in Osaka, Trump is still reportedly “a long way from upset.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XMyWKy Tyler Durden

Authored by Megan Brenan via Gallup.com,

As Americans prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday, their pride in the U.S. has hit its lowest point since Gallup’s first measurement in 2001. While 70% of U.S. adults overall say they are proud to be Americans, this includes fewer than half (45%) who are “extremely” proud, marking the second consecutive year that this reading is below the majority level. Democrats continue to lag far behind Republicans in expressing extreme pride in the U.S.

These findings are explored further with new measurements of the public’s pride in eight aspects of U.S. government and society. American scientific achievements, military and culture/arts engender the most pride, while the U.S. political system and health and welfare system garner the least.

Decreasing Percentage in U.S. Are Extremely Proud to Be American

U.S. adults’ extreme pride in being American has been steadily weakening in recent years, and the current reading, from a June 3-16 Gallup poll, marks the lowest point to date. However, the latest two-percentage-point decline from last year’s 47% is not a statistically significant change.

The highest readings on the measure, 69% and 70%, were between 2002 and 2004, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the American public expressed high levels of patriotism and rallied around the U.S. government. Yet, since the start of George W. Bush’s second presidential term in 2005, fewer than 60% of Americans have expressed extreme pride in being American.

Democrats Continue to Express Low U.S. Pride

The latest overall declines in patriotism are largely driven by Democrats, whose self-reported pride has historically been lower and has fluctuated more than Republicans’. Democrats’ latest 22% extreme pride reading is the group’s lowest in Gallup’s 19 years of measurement, and is half of what it was several months before Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.

For their part, most Republicans have remained extremely proud of their country, and the latest 76% reading is just 10 points below the high recorded in 2003. Even when Barack Obama was in office, Republicans’ extreme pride never fell below 68%.

Independents have historically been less proud of the U.S. than Republicans have been; currently, 41% express extreme pride — which is, by one point, the lowest reading in the trend.

Several subgroups that typically identify as Democrats — women, liberals and younger adults — all express lower levels of extreme U.S. pride than their counterparts.

Sources of Pride in American Government and Society

In order to understand the sources of Americans’ pride, Gallup included a new question in the June poll. The question asked Americans whether eight aspects of U.S. government and society make them proud. Strong majorities express pride in six of the eight — American scientific achievements (91%), the U.S. military (89%), American culture and arts (85%), economic (75%) and sporting (73%) achievements, and diversity in race, ethnic background, and religion (72%).

Conversely, the American political system (32%) and health and welfare system (37%) are not sources of pride to most Americans.

The greatest disparities in the views of Republicans and Democrats on these eight aspects are seen on American economic achievements (89% of Republicans vs. 64% of Democrats are proud), the U.S. political system (42% of Republicans vs. 25% of Democrats) and the U.S. military (98% of Republicans vs. 84% of Democrats).

Bottom Line

Record-low American patriotism is the latest casualty of the sharply polarized political climate in the U.S. today. For the second time in 19 years, fewer than half of U.S. adults say they are extremely proud to be Americans. The decline reflects plummeting pride among Democrats since Trump took office, even as Republican pride has edged higher.

While neither party group feels proud of the U.S. political system, politics may be affecting Democrats’ overall sense of pride in their country more than Republicans’, given Democrats’ low approval of the president. Democrats’ awareness of Trump’s historically low presidential approval rating across the international community may also be a factor in this latest decline in patriotism. So too could be Gallup data from earlier this year, which found that just 31% of Americans (including 2% of Democrats) think foreign leaders have respect for Trump.

Absent a significant national event that might rally all Americans around the flag, given Democrats’ entrenched views of the president, these historically low readings on American pride are likely to continue until Trump is no longer in office.

The good news is that despite a slump in overall pride, the country offers many achievements that are a source of pride for Americans — Democrats and Republicans alike.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NtnrDS Tyler Durden