In the news

 I have seen several interesting things in the newspapers over the last few days:

1.  The Washington Post reported on a survey showing that there has finally been a drop in Donald Trump's popularity after the Capitol riot.  One of the questions in the survey asked "As far as the future is concerned, thinking about our system of government and how it works--is this something you feel generally optimistic about, generally pessimistic about, or uncertain about?"  The question has been asked off and on since 1975.  Although this is the sort of thing I am interested in, I don't remember ever seeing that question before. Here is a summary measure:

There's definitely a downward trend.  Just looking at it, I would say that there's little or no trend in the 20th century, but a drop starting in 2008 (the survey was January, well before the financial crisis).  However, if you fit models, it's not clear if there's any deviation from a linear trend.  The value is the latest survey (a few days ago) is not the lowest ever--surveys in 2011 and 2013 showed less optimism.  I haven't checked, but I suspect that those were around times of standoffs over raising the debt ceiling.  

2.  The New York Times reported that the German Christian Democratic Party had selected a new leader, Armin  Laschet, but said that his position was not secure:  "If Mr. Laschet fails to gain popularity with voters, he might come under pressure to cede the chancellor nomination to another possible candidate who has yet to declare his intention to run: Markus Söder, the popular leader of the state of Bavaria and head of the Christian Democrats’ conservative sister party.  Relatively young, ambitious and calculating, Mr. Söder has morphed from a fierce Merkel critic during the 2015 migrant crisis into one of her most loyal allies during the pandemic."

3.  The New York Times also had a story on conflicts in the Republican party.   A quotation:  “'What President Trump has done has realigned the political parties, and either the establishment of the Republican Party recognizes that or we don’t — and I believe that we will,' said Representative Ken Buck, who is also the Colorado G.O.P. chairman. He suggested that the party should be attentive to Mr. Trump’s working-class support and avoid being 'hyperfocused on the suburban vote.'"  I didn't know who Ken Buck was, so I looked up his Wikipedia biography.  It turns out that both of his parents were lawyers in New York City and he went to Princeton.  

These last two items are related to my previous post.  At one time, elite colleges played an important part in creating an "establishment"--someone with Buck's background would probably have become a moderate Republican and someone with Tom Cotton's background would probably have become more moderate as a result of attending an elite college.  That's no longer the case, at least on the conservative side.  More generally, as the example with the Christian Democrats shows, mainstream political parties usually tend to draw ambitious politicians from the extremes towards the center.  That no longer happens in the Republican party.  If anything, it's the reverse--a moderate will be pulled towards the extremes, as seen in Mitt Romney's unconvincing efforts to pass himself off as "severely conservative" (I think that was how he put it) in 2012.