What if Trump Refuses to Leave Office?

In a recent piece for The New York Times, Thomas Edsall poses the question: What if President Trump refuses to leave the White House? Edsall details several versions of this scenario, whether through impeachment or through a 2020 election defeat. Should either of those outcomes occur, some do not believe Trump will follow his duty and relinquish power. Edsall notes Trump’s frequent references to those who are most loyal to him, who could in theory join up to prevent his departure from office. Edsall notes that PRRI data has shown where white Americans are at with the country. “Polls and surveys from Pew, N.P.R. and the Public Religion Research Institute show that 55% of whites believe they are discriminated against, that a plurality of whites (46%) believes that a majority-minority nation will ‘weaken American culture’ and that once dominant white Christians are no longer a majority.” This topic was the title of PRRI CEO and founder Robert P. Jones’ 2016 book, “The End of White Christian America.” Throughout the rest of the piece, Edsall quotes academic scholars and political thinkers about the possibility of Trump not leaving office. He concludes that he has grown, “more worried…about strains within the American electorate.”

NBC Comedy Asks if Men Involved in #MeToo Movement Are Capable of Moral Absolution

On NBC’s “The Good Place,” people who die on earth get sent to a version of purgatory that appears to be, as the title suggests, the good place. Over time, it is revealed that the people who were not good on Earth are sent to a place that only seems like heaven, and they are test subjects to see if people can evolve morally, and eliminate actions that made them bad people. In episode two of the most recent season, the show tackled the #MeToo movement. The subject of the episode is a deceased CEO who posits that his death may be a good thing. “Some journalist was poking around calling all these ladies who used to work for me. You can’t make a joke these days. Everything is so PC,” he says. In a piece for The Atlantic, Spencer Korhaber examines the episode and the sensitivity needed to approach a topic like #MeToo. “In order to save humankind from hell, the protagonists must coax their new charges into becoming better people. The Good Place thus must furnish an answer to the riddle of how to not just punish male creeps but to also fix them,” he writes. Whether the new character is capable of any sort of moral absolution, will remain a theme in coming episodes. PRRI data shows that almost half of Americans say that the #MeToo movement has had a positive impact. About half (48%) say it has helped address sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. Less than one in five (18%) say it has led to the unfair treatment of men, and 16% say it has not really made any difference. There is a sharp gender divide on the impact of #MeToo. Women are more likely than men to say that #MeToo has helped address sexual harassment and assault in the workplace (53% vs. 42%), while men are more likely than women to say that the movement has led to unfair treatment of men (23% vs. 14%).