90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

America’s surging politics of victimhood and identitarian division did not emerge organically or inevitably, as many believe. Nor are these practices the result of irrepressible demands by minorities for recognition, or for redress of past wrongs, as we are constantly told.

Those explanations are myths, spread by the activists, intellectuals, and philanthropists who set out deliberately, beginning at midcentury, to redefine our country. Their goal was mass mobilization for political ends, and one of their earliest targets was the Mexican American community.

These activists strived purposefully to turn Americans of this community (who mostly resided in the Southwestern states) against their countrymen, teaching them first to see themselves as a racial minority and then to think of themselves as the core of a panethnic victim group of “Hispanics”—a fabricated term with no basis in ethnicity, culture, or race.

This transformation took effort—because many Mexican Americans had traditionally seen themselves as white. When the 1930 census classified “Mexican American” as a race, leaders of the community protested vehemently and had the classification changed back to “white” in the very next census.

The most prominent Mexican American organization at the time—the patriotic, pro-assimilationist League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC—complained that declassifying Mexicans as white had been an attempt to “discriminate between the Mexicans themselves and other members of the white race, when in truth and fact we are not only a part and parcel but as well the sum and substance of the white race.” Tracing their ancestry in part to the Spanish who conquered South and Central America, they regarded themselves as offshoots of white Europeans.

Such views may surprise readers today, but this was the way many Mexican Americans saw their race until midcentury.

They had the law on their side: A federal district court ruled in In Re Ricardo Rodríguez (1896) that Mexican Americans were to be considered white for the purposes of citizenship concerns.

And so as late as 1947, the judge in another federal case (Mendez v. Westminster) ruled that segregating Mexican American students in remedial schools in Orange County was unconstitutional because it represented social disadvantage, not racial discrimination. At that time, Mexican Americans were as white before the law as they were in their own estimation.

Half a century later, many Mexican Americans had been persuaded of a very different origin story. Among the persuaders-in-chief was Paul Ylvisaker, head of the Public Affairs Program at New York’s wealthy Ford Foundation during the 1950s and ’60s.

Though little known today, Ylvisaker wielded great power and influence to advance a particular vision of social justice inspired partly by socialism and its politics of resentment. Ylvisaker hoped, as he later put it in a 1991 essay, “The Future of Hispanic Nonprofits,” that Mexican Americans could be organized into a...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Trump's percentage improves, ties Barack Obama's
Barack Obama has record-tying 12th first-place finish
Michelle Obama most admired woman for second year in a row

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama and Donald Trump are tied this year as the most admired man. It is Obama's 12th time in the top spot versus the first for Trump. Michelle Obama is the most admired woman for the second year in a row.

Each year since 1948, Gallup has asked Americans to name, in an open-ended fashion, which man and woman living anywhere in the world they admire most. This year's results are based on a Dec. 2-15 poll.

Americans' choice for most admired man this year is sharply divided along party lines: 41% of Democrats name Obama, while 45% of Republicans choose Trump. Relatively few Democrats choose Trump and relatively few Republicans pick Obama, while independents' choices are divided about equally between the two men.

After Obama and Trump, no other man was mentioned by more than 2% of respondents. The remainder of the top 10 for men this year includes former President Jimmy Carter, businessman Elon Musk, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the Dalai Lama, and investor Warren Buffett.

Eleven percent of Americans named a relative or friend as the man they admire most; 18% named some other living man; and 25% did not name anyone.

The incumbent president has typically been Americans' choice as the most admired man, having earned the distinction in 58 of the 72 prior Gallup polls. When the incumbent president is not the choice, it is usually because he is unpopular politically, which was the case for Trump in 2017 (36% approval rating) and 2018 (40%).

Trump is more popular now than he was in the past two years, with a 45% job approval rating, among his best as president. Coincident with the rise in his job approval rating, the 18% of Americans currently naming Trump as the most admired man is also up, from 13% in 2018 and 14% in 2017. Increased mentions of Trump as the most admired man have come almost exclusively among his fellow Republicans -- 32% of Republicans named Trump in 2018 and 35% did so in 2017.

Obama's 18% mentions among U.S. adults as the most admired man are in line with his 2018 (19%) and 2017 (17%) figures, all of which are high for a former president. Dwight Eisenhower is the only other former president who received double-digit mentions at any point after leaving office.

The post-presidency popularity for Obama and Eisenhower allowed each to finish first a record 12 times. Each man was named most admired man in the year he was elected president and all eight years he was in office, plus three additional years. Obama has finished first during the first three years after he left office, while Eisenhower won once before he ran for president (1950) and twice after leaving office (1967 and 1968).
Michelle Obama Only Woman in Double Digits

Historically, it has been more common for a former first lady to be named the most admired woman than for a former president to be named most admired man. Michelle Obama is the sixth former first lady to win, along with Eleanor Roosevelt (1948-1950 and 1952-1961), Jacqueline Kennedy (1963-1966), Mamie Eisenhower (1969-1970), Betty Ford (1978) and Hillary Clinton (2002-2017).

The 10% naming Obama this year is down from 15% last year. The 2018 poll was conducted shortly after she released her bestselling autobiography.

Current first lady Melania Trump finished second this year, mentioned by 5%, with former...