Credit: Rolling Stone

In early 2018, after a year of confusion over why Donald Trump had been elected, Clemson sociologist Andrew Whitehead and two colleagues provided compelling evidence — which I wrote about here — that “voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage.” That is, it represented “Christian nationalism,” even when controlling for other popular explanations such as “economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment.” The puzzle of why white evangelicals voted for Trump so overwhelmingly turned out to have a simple explanation: It wasn’t their religion that he championed — Trump is conspicuously not a person of faith — but rather its place in society.

Now, Whitehead and one of those colleagues, University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, have a new book taking their research approach much further: “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.” Donald Trump doesn’t figure as a central subject […]

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Credit: Patrick White/Atlantic

When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.

The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.

After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.

James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced “that they […]

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Researchers found a link between an increase in anti-environment votes and an increase in financial contributions. They noticed how the lawmakers’ scores from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) dipped and then were followed by campaign funding from the industry. There is a 10% decrease on average in the LCV score in an election cycle that was associated with an additional in $1,700 campaign funds from the corporations in the following cycle. In other words, every time those scores dipped, they got paid.

This study basically just found out what everyone knows. Lobbying works. It is why companies lobby politicians. Whether explicitly or implicitly, politicians know that if they do what a certain lobbyist wants, a certain company or industry is going to put some money in their re-election bank account. They also know that if they sign onto certain bills, voters who support them may not like them, but they also won’t vote those politicians out of office. On the other hand, if they don’t do what certain corporations want, they may face a heavily funded primary opponent.

This study analyzed data […]

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Flooded farm field
Credit: Bloomberg

For the second year in a row, much of the U.S. is primed to suffer multi-billion dollar flood losses, with farmers already steeling themselves for planting delays.

Relentless storms that have marched across the Midwest and into the South this winter have already filled rivers to the brim and are threatening to make farm fields too soggy to plant as spring arrives. And there isn’t much to suggest an easing ahead. Heavy rains forecast through next week could push waterways higher where the Mississippi and Ohio meet in Illinois, and into northern Mississippi and Arkansas.

Most states in the American heartland have had two to three times more moisture than normal so far this winter, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. As February ends and the rains of March and April approach, it won’t take much to cause major problems for farmers in the planting season, homeowners and businesses.

“Odds are we won’t have the $20 billion in losses we had last year,” said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with Scientific […]

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Citroen AMI 100% electric car. Ami can be bought for €19.99 (around $22) a month after making an initial payment of €2,644 (around $2,919). Or, if you want to rent the cars for short periods like you would an electric scooter, then Citroën says they’ll be available for around €0.26 a minute via partners like Free2Move alongside a monthly subscription of €9.90. If you want one to own it can be yours for €6,000 (around $6,600). They can be bought online and delivered directly to your home, Citroën says.

Citroën’s Ami, the tiny two-seater electric car that was first revealed as a concept last year, will be released this spring. The Ami is absolutely tiny at just 2.41 meters (7 feet, 11 inches) long, and is technically classed as a “light quadricycle” similar to the Renault Twizy, which means it can be driven by teenagers as young as 14-years old in France and 16-years old in the rest of Europe. It also doesn’t require a driving license to operate. Citroën will sell the […]

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