Updates from the Road - The American Values Survey and the Faith & Democracy Tour
The Faith & Democracy Tour is coming to Tempe, AZ, this Sunday.
Dear #WhiteTooLong readers,
Whew! October has been a dead sprint, and it’s only half-way over. I’m writing this in the air between events (heading to Theology Beer Camp in Denver), so I’ll keep the commentary short. But I wanted to highlight some breaking research and resources and upcoming opportunities as we head down the home stretch of the election.
In the past two weeks, I’ve been honored to speak at events at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture sponsored by E Pluribus Unum Fund, Boston College, Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ (DC), and Hofstra University. I’m always thrilled to connect with White Too Long subscribers on the road, so please do say hello if you make it to any upcoming in person events.
Yesterday (10/16) was a banner day, anchored by media coverage at the New York Times and MSNBC and the release of PRRI’s 15th annual American Values Survey, our flagship fall survey conducted in partnership with The Brookings Institution.
See below for the key highlights-
Robby
P.S. If you live near, or have friend near, the Tempe, AZ, area, we’ll be making the next stop on our Faith & Democracy Tour this Sunday at Dayspring United Methodist Church. Click here for details and to register.
The New York Times - Trump has Turned It Up to 11
Yesterday morning, New York Times columnist Tom Edsall interviewed me for his hard-hitting piece about the centrality of Donald Trump’s racism to his appeal. My take:
With three weeks to go in the campaign, Robert Jones, the founder and president of P.R.R.I. and the author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,” wrote by email:
We’re rapidly running out of superlatives to describe how extreme Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has become. He’s clearly amped up his harsh and violent rhetoric. Even in 2020, his rhetoric largely focused on building a wall and keep out undocumented immigrants. But in 2024, his rhetoric has shifted almost exclusively to talking about immigrants as the deranged and violent enemy who has already invaded the country.
He talks about immigrants slitting the throats of housewives in their kitchens and raping young girls and promises mass arrests, militarized encampments and deportation. His rhetoric has now moved — there’s really no other way to say it — fully into Nazi territory. He has called immigrants “not human” and referred to them as “animals.”
More disturbingly, Jones added,
Trump has taken his supporters with him on this extremist journey. In 2013, a majority (53 percent) of Republicans supported a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally; by 2019, that number had dropped to 39 percent.
Today, two-thirds of Republicans (64 percent) and a majority of white evangelical Protestants (54 percent) agree even with Trump’s dehumanizing assertion, echoing Hitler’s arguments in “Mein Kampf,” that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” We know these words are the bricks paving the road to political violence and even genocide.
The Release of the American Values Survey
Yesterday morning also marked the release of PRRI’s flagship survey, the American Values Survey, which we’ve conducted for the past 15 years in partnership with E.J. Dionne Jr. and Bill Galston at The Brookings Institution. I was happy to see a full room in the Brookings auditorium, reminiscent of the pre-COVID days. We had an all-star panel for the discussion: PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman, The Bulwark’s A.B. Stoddard, and MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
I’ll write a separate piece soon on the key findings, but you can dive into the full report at PRRI’s website now, and you can watch the full release event below.
MSNBC - Trump Talks about “Enemies Within” as Largest Threat to the Country
I wrapped the day with an appearance on The Reidout with Joy Reid at MSNBC last night. We talked some of the chillings findings from The American Values Survey, including Republican support for political violence (three in ten) and the use of militarized encampments as a means of deporting undocumented immigrants (eight in ten). Click the image below to watch the segment.
