I have spent much of my career studying ways to blunt the effects of disinformation and help the public make sense of the complexities of politics and science. When my colleagues and I probed the relation between the consumption of misinformation and the embrace, or dismissal, of protective behaviors that […] Read more »
Donald Trump and the Lie
The legitimacy of democratically elected governments rests in part on widespread acceptance of the outcome of elections, especially among those who lost. This “losers’ consent” allows the winners to govern and, when the incumbent is the losing party, it allows for a peaceful transition of power. What happens in a […] Read more »
Political ‘Tribes’ within Today’s GOP
There has been a great deal of speculation about how much influence former President Trump wields over the GOP. One of the objectives of this study was to answer that question by parsing GOP voters based on their attitudes toward President Trump and his role in the party to identify […] Read more »
Most Americans think election results could lead to political violence in the coming years
A broad majority of Americans say that political violence in response to election results is likely in the United States in the next few years, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS. Overall, 71% say political violence in response to election results is at least somewhat likely, including […] Read more »
Support for QAnon is hard to measure – and polls may overestimate it
It’s not clear exactly how many people believe or follow QAnon. AP Photo/Matt Rourke James Shanahan, Indiana University It’s hard to know how many people actually believe the key tenets of QAnon’s claims, including that devil-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles are somehow running the world. Its adherents have caused violence and insurrection, […] Read more »
White evangelicals’ dominance of the GOP has turned it into the party of resistance
… For almost all of American history, White Christians have represented a large majority of the US population and controlled the levers of government power. But that majority had shrunk to just 54% by 2008 when Barack Obama won election as the first African American president and personified the nation’s […] Read more »