Hasta La Gadget!

Public opinion on the role of government is shifting. President Trump continues to struggle on job approval. And we take an early look at the French election runoff. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, April 25, 2017.

AMERICANS SPLIT ON THE IDEAL SIZE OF THE GOVERNMENT – Pew Research: “As Congress faces an April 28 deadline to fund government operations, the public is now split in their general preferences on the size and scope of government: 48% say they would rather have a bigger government providing more services, while 45% prefer a smaller government providing fewer services. This marks the first time in eight years that as many Americans have expressed a preference for a bigger as a smaller government. Support for bigger government has increased 7 percentage points since last September, when more said they preferred a smaller government offering fewer services (50%) than a bigger government providing more services (41%). The last time the public was divided on this question was in October 2008, just prior to the election of Barack Obama….The national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted April 5-11 among 1,501 adults, also finds broad support for maintaining or increasing federal spending across 14 specific program areas. And public support for increased spending across most programs is now significantly higher than it was in 2013, a time when public concerns about the budget deficit were on the rise.” [Pew]

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS FAILING TO WIN ANY NEW SUPPORTERS – Dan Balz and Scott Clement: “President Trump nears the 100-day mark of his administration as the least popular chief executive in modern times, a president whose voters remain largely satisfied with his performance, but one whose base of support has not expanded since he took the oath of office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Trump’s first months in office have produced some tangible successes. Beyond the continued enthusiasm of his most loyal supporters, a small majority of Americans see him as a strong leader. A bigger majority approves of his efforts to pressure U.S. companies to keep jobs in this country. Those who say the economy is getting better outnumber those who say it’s getting worse by the biggest margin in 15 years in Post-ABC polling. But the president’s balance sheet overall tilts toward the negative….The 100-day marker is in part an artificial measuring post for any president, but by comparison, Trump has reached this point in his presidency faring worse to much worse than other recent presidents. An electorate that was deeply divided throughout the 2016 campaign remains so today, with opposition seemingly hardened and unyielding on most questions regarding his presidency.” [WashPost]

Americans rate Trump’s presidency as off to a ‘poor start’ – Mark Murray: “Nearly two-thirds of Americans give President Donald Trump poor or middling marks for his first 100 days in office, including a plurality who say he’s off to a ‘poor start,’ according to results from a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Forty-five percent of respondents in the survey believe Trump is off to a poor start, with an additional 19 percent who say it’s been ‘only a fair start.’ That’s compared with a combined 35 percent who think the president’s first three months in office have been either ‘good’ or ‘great.’…The new NBC/WSJ poll also shows an erosion in some of Trump’s top perceived qualities, with 50 percent of respondents giving Trump high marks for being firm and decisive in his decision-making – down from the 57 percent who gave him high marks here in February….The best news for President Trump in the poll is on the issue of Syria…50 percent of all Americans say they approve of Trump’s handling of Syria – 10 points higher than his overall approval rating.” [NBC]

Trump’s approve/disapprove ratings as of Tuesday morning, per HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate:

-Among all Americans: 43/53

-Among Democrats: 12/86

-Among Republicans: 85/12

-Among independents: 40/53

-On the economy: 43/45

-On health care: 35/53

-On foreign policy: 40/50

[Pollster charts]

MARINE LE PEN AND EMMANUEL MACRON WILL MOVE ON TO COMPETE FOR FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION – Willa Frej and Nick Robins-Early: “The preliminary results of France’s first round of presidential elections are in, and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen appear set to face each other in the runoff on May 7. Early projections on Sunday predicted Macron would win with 23.7 percent of the vote and Le Pen would take home 21.7 percent. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and conservative Republican party leader Francois Fillon were narrowly edged out of the final round. Those numbers were early estimates released after polls closed at 8 p.m. local time. Final results are expected later this evening.” [HuffPost]

Surveys give Macron a significant lead – Macron leads Le Pen by about 26 points, 63 percent to 37 percent, in Pollster’s aggregate of runoff polling as of Tuesday morning. No survey to date has shown Macron with less than a 16-point edge. [Pollster chart]

Could France be the next shock election result? – Nate Silver: “Macron is an overwhelming favorite to win the runoff on May 7. But we’re likely to hear two weeks of punditry that draws misleading comparisons between Le Pen, President Trump and Brexit — and that exaggerates Le Pen’s chances as a result. Although vote counts are still being finalized, the first-round result should be a good one for pollsters, which correctly had Macron and Le Pen in the top two positions….[W]hile there were plenty of precedents for a polling error large enough to elect Trump, there aren’t all that many examples of a 26-point polling error, which is what Le Pen would need….[T]here’s no evidence that candidates such as Le Pen systematically outperform their polls. Across dozens of European elections since 2012, in fact, nationalist and right-wing parties have been as likely to underperform their polls as to overperform them.” [538, more on Le Pen’s chances from The Economist]

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TUESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-A new poll finds little support for the GOP’s latest Obamacare repeal efforts. [WashPost]

-Nate Cohn reviews the unusually strong turnout for Democrats in the first round of voting for the Georgia Sixth special election. [NYT]

-Ben Wieder notes that scientists donate more to Democratic candidates than Republicans. [538]

-Tania Lombrozo writes that public perceptions of science are often tied to political ideology. [NPR]

-Philip Bump delves into public opinion on abortion. [WashPost]

-Ella Washington and Frank Newport examine the workplace repercussions of last year’s election. [Gallup]

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

The adage about the trend has become as ubiquitous as the trend itself: dystopian books are everywhere, and their popularity doesn’t seem to be waning.

Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, sales of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale spiked. The latter story is seeing a resurgence not only because its feminist themes resonate with the set of readers who partook in January’s Women’s March, but also because the story is getting a shiny, new TV adaptation, out this month from Hulu.

Stories like Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” and their ilk ― the “Divergent” series, the “Maze Runner” series, and “The 100” series ― are not only popular on screen, but in American classrooms, too.

Which isn’t to say the subgenre doesn’t have its decriers. In an interview with HuffPost, science-fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin shared her thoughts on the appeal of dystopias: “People are scared, so they want to read fiction where they can be scared without any real reason to be. To sort of play at being scared instead of being really scared. I don’t read that stuff.” She’s not alone; The Hunger Games was among the most-banned books of 2010, 2011 and 2013.

But educators Judith A. Hayn, co-author of Teaching Young Adult Literature Today, and Elizabeth Majerus, co-author of Can I Teach That?, both argue that dystopian stories are uniquely useful in high school settings, where the texts can serve as jumping-off points for broader political conversations, and where students are otherwise unlikely to see themselves represented in the characters they read about.

I think part of what resonates for younger readers is that it’s often a younger protagonist who’s facing the crises brought on by older generations.
Elizabeth Majerus, author of “Can I Teach That?”

“I think part of what resonates for younger readers is that it’s often a younger protagonist who’s facing the crises brought on by older generations,” Majerus told HuffPost. “They’re facing these issues that they’ve inherited, and I think a lot of kids can really relate to that. It’s always exciting for a young person to read about a hero who’s also a young person, but particularly a hero that is faced with rectifying the social, environmental and political catastrophes that came about well before they were born.”

This year, Majerus is teaching a course at University High School in Illinois designed around utopian and dystopian societies in fiction. Her students read a bevy of essays about utopias and dystopias, then they ventured to create their own utopian classroom by electing which fiction titles they would read.

“Teaching a class that pretty much started a couple of weeks before the inauguration of Donald J. Trump definitely was a much more interesting, complicated ― but also exciting ― experience. It feels much more relevant,” Majerus said. “We’re at a point in American history where the things that we as a people do right now ― it feels like it does have an effect on the future, and whether we go down a road toward continuing democracy, and whether we go down a road that feels more dystopian.”

Hayn, who teaches teacher education at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, agreed. “I think that students feel that anger and frustration that they sense from outside the classroom, and they bring that with them,” she told HuffPost. “Even the very young have been very troubled, I think, by what is going on.”

Both Majerus and Hayn said that dystopian stories provide one avenue for discussing today’s political climate, without doing so in a contentious, head-on manner, and without engaging with their own personal viewpoints, which, they agreed, should be kept out of the classroom.

“I would hope that an English language arts teacher would be able to do that, say, ‘Do you see any contemporary issues in the world around you now?’ and lead the students to make some of those observations,” Hayn said. “I think we have an obligation to include the political, so that students understand why we got to where we are now.”

Majerus adds that reading stories that engage with political content, but through stories with individual characters and individual motivations, can add extra context to headlines that students are likely reading.

“When they get to really step inside the shoes of a person ― even if it’s a fictional person, but it’s a really well fleshed-out character ― they are more challenged to consider other perspectives, and to see the human stories behind the headlines,” Majerus said. “I think when a student reads a story that articulates an experience that they’re not familiar with, it can challenge some of their assumptions.”

The site for her class links to Margaret Atwood’s recent essay about her novel in the New York Times, in which the author wrestles with whether she considers the story a feminist one. (“If you mean a novel in which women are human beings — with all the variety of character and behavior that implies — and are also interesting and important, and what happens to them is crucial to the theme, structure and plot of the book, then yes. In that sense, many books are ‘feminist,’” the author writes, herself adding nuance to the conversation around the title.)

That said, both educators see the value in sharing stories from multiple mediums with their students, including not only fiction and news, but movies and TV shows, too ― whichever outlets kids are already getting their media from, so that they can think critically about what they’re already consuming. And, with dystopian books, there’s a wealth of cross-genre content available. Majerus is sharing a 1990 adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale with her class ― a film is easier to fit into the allotted time than a series, she said ― and hopes to compare the choices made by the author and the director. 

“I think we have an obligation to include the political, so that students understand why we got to where we are now.”
Judith Hayn, author of ‘Teaching Young Adult Literature Today’

“I love watching a film after students have read a book, because you learn a lot about a book by analyzing the choices a filmmaker makes,” Majerus said. “What parts to include, how you bridge those gaps. Those choices are extremely rich for conversation about the book. Whether students agree or disagree with aspects the filmmaker focused on, how they feel about things that were left out.”

So, watching movies in English class can be much more than a fallback plan for underprepared teachers; it’s also a means of keeping the classroom relevant to the world beyond it.

To this end, Hayn thinks dystopian books are generally a better choice than the established canon, which, she points out, comprises mostly white male writers.

“We can go on and on about the value of that, and whether or not it’s a good thing, but students do not tend to see themselves in those pieces,” Hayn said. “They’re not there at all. And particularly if they belong to groups that have no power, that are underrepresented in society and certainly underrepresented in literature.”

A chapter of her book Teaching Young Adult Literature Today focuses on reaching disenfranchised groups of young readers, and she thinks contemporary YA stories ― dystopias included ― take a small step in the right direction as far as representation is concerned. True equality is yet to be achieved, but these stories instill the idea that change is possible.

“It’s also the comfort of seeing people succeed, overthrow and create a new world,” Hayn said. And that might be their greatest strength, and most alluring quality: dystopian books are, ultimately, about individual strength amid governmental havoc, and hope amid trying times.

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(Reuters) – A police officer said “minimal but necessary force” was used to remove a United Airlines customer from a plane in what has become a public relations disaster for the company.

Video taken by other passengers showed David Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese-American doctor, being dragged up the aisle with blood on his face after the airline decided it needed his seat for a crew member on a flight from Chicago to Kentucky on April 9.

Dao suffered concussion, a broken nose and lost two front teeth and is likely to sue the airline, his lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, has said. In its initial reaction, the airline did not apologize to Dao and described him as “disruptive and belligerent.” Social media users in the United States, Vietnam and China called for a boycott.

In an incident reported released by city authorities and posted on the Chicago Tribune’s website, aviation police officer Mauricio Rodriguez said Dao had become combative when he and two other officers tried to persuade him to leave the plane.

According to the report, Dao told the officers: “I’m not leaving this flight that I paid money for. I don’t care if I get arrested.”

An officer identified as James Long then tried to get Dao out of his seat, at which point the passenger “started swinging his arms up and down fast and violently,” the report said.

Long lost control of Dao as he swung, causing Dao to fall and hit his mouth on the armrest. Long “assisted the subject by using minimal but necessary force” to get him off the aircraft, Rodriguez said in the report.

Demetrio said through a spokeswoman to the Wall Street Journal that the police version of events was “utter nonsense. Consider the source.”

Chicago’s aviation department on Monday told the Journal that the three officers involved remained on leave and that it was conducting an investigation.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Trevor Noah on Monday celebrated President Donald Trump’s upcoming 100th day in office by picking him apart ― unkept promise after unkept promise.

“The Daily Show” host zinged the commander-in-chief for failed attempts at a travel ban, repealing and replacing Obamacare, and financing a wall on the Mexican border.

And, no, Noah emphasized, Trump doesn’t get credit for trying. “Boy Scouts don’t earn badges for trying to help an old lady across the street,” he said. “They either help her across or she gets crushed by an 18-wheeler.”

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WASHINGTON ― The Supreme Court did not receive a formal invitation from President Donald Trump to have dinner at the White House this Thursday, a court spokeswoman and a White House aide confirmed on Monday.

“An invitation was never extended,” said the aide, who added that the dinner plans, which were first noted in a weekly agenda sent to reporters early on Sunday, were only tentative and subject to change.

Indeed, later Sunday night, the dinner was no longer listed in an updated weekly planner the White House made available to reporters.

“That evening, the President will have dinner with the Justices of the Supreme Court, including his successfully confirmed nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch,” said the initial White House report, which was notable for highlighting events touting Trump’s first 100 days in office.

Asked about the scrapped dinner plans on Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president’s team had “moved some things around” in Trump’s schedule and was hopeful a dinner would happen at a later date.

But he rebuffed the suggestion that somehow Trump wanted to implicate the Supreme Court in the publicity efforts surrounding his accomplishments during the 100-day sprint.

“I think having a relationship and meeting with the Supreme Court at some point would be a great idea and something that we hope to have on the schedule at some point soon,” Spicer said.

Wining and dining the justices isn’t unprecedented in American history, but Trump is a unique president, enmeshed in a series of high-profile lawsuits naming him as a defendant in his official capacity — including over his conflicts of interest and his beleaguered travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries.

Since these cases could conceivably reach the court in the near future, some people have expressed concern about the ethics and the optics of the justices attending a White House dinner while the cases move through the courts. 

“Why would the Supreme Court agree to do this?” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), whose state is suing Trump in federal court over the travel restrictions. “I can think of no legitimate reason to dine with a litigant.”

Under the law and ethics canons, justices and judges are expected to steer clear of situations and comments where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned by the public or parties before them.

Gorsuch, who began hearing cases at the Supreme Court last week, was careful to not comment on some of the pending legal controversies involving Trump during his confirmation hearings last month.

“I have to be very careful about expressing any views,” Gorsuch said.

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