Why Biden Just Can’t Shake Trump in the Polls

Like so many bands of wind and rain, hurricane-strength squalls of bad news have battered former President Donald Trump all year. Since April, he’s been indicted four times, on 91 separate felony charges, compared with zero counts for all of his White House predecessors. … President Joe Biden, by contrast, […] Read more »

After latest Trump indictment, many Americans see implications for democracy. For some, it’s personal.

America’s response to this week’s indictment of Donald Trump is providing a window into more than just how Americans view his alleged actions per se — but also into what they think it means for democracy itself. Half the nation believes Trump tried to stay in office beyond his term […] Read more »

Trump’s Threat to Democracy Is Now Systemic

The long-awaited federal indictment of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election may be necessary to contain the threat to American democracy that he has unleashed. But it’s unlikely to be sufficient. The germ of election denialism that Trump injected into the American political system has spread […] Read more »

How Republicans are stitching their own straitjacket on Trump indictment

The Republican response to Donald Trump’s latest criminal indictment offers a clear test of the famous saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and hoping for a different result. The choice by Republican leaders, and even almost all of his 2024 rivals for the […] Read more »

Large numbers of Americans want a strong, rough, anti-democratic leader

Many Americans, many of them Republicans, seek leaders who would violate basic principles of democracy. AP Photo/Ben Gray Tarah Williams, Allegheny College; Andrew Bloeser, Allegheny College, and Brian Harward, Allegheny College It might be comforting to think that American democracy has made it past the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. But […] Read more »

What Does Threat to Democracy Mean To Swing Voters?

On the eve of the midterm elections last fall, President Biden delivered a speech in which he argued that the central issue for 2022 was the threat to our democracy. Many pundits, and even some high-profile Democrats, criticized Biden’s messaging. After all, poll after poll showed that the economy and […] Read more »