… A yearning for an earlier time, especially prevalent in rural American towns and cities like Mount Airy, helped spur white evangelical Christians to vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. For these voters, the desire for change also could be viewed as a desire to change back, to what they perceive […] Read more »
2017: At the Dawn of the Age of Trump
It’s already clear that the very strange political year of 2016 is bleeding over into the New Year. How could it be otherwise? President-elect Donald Trump, loved and hated by about equal numbers of Americans, continues to ignore or break with convention in a wide variety of areas. Just as […] Read more »
How ‘Elites’ Became One of the Nastiest Epithets in American Politics
… For most of American history, anti-elite sentiment was a matter of up versus down, not left versus right. But about half a century ago, the conservative movement set out to claim anti-elite politics as its own. That meant redefining the term away from class and toward culture, where the […] Read more »
The Media and Institutional Failure
The media is enduring a good deal of criticism lately, particularly with regards to its coverage of politics and elections. But what, exactly, is the media’s role in politics? Are we applying unrealistic expectations to an entire industry? CONT. Seth Masket (U. of Denver), Pacific Standard Read more »
Big Data’s Big Misses: 2016 Was a Bad Year For Predictions
Goodbye 2016. The journalists and analysts who work with numbers will not miss you. From the United States to the United Kingdom, the last 12 months will be remembered for missed calls, surprises and upsets that didn’t just beat the odds, but that shattered them – and not just in […] Read more »
From Trump to terrorism, the year in polls
An historic presidential campaign, the economy, race relations, and terrorism were some of the topics covered in CBS News Polls over the course of 2016. Here’s a look at back at what was on the minds of Americans this year. CONT. Jennifer De Pinto, CBS News Read more »