… With the president facing an impeachment inquiry, and a whistle-blower report made public Thursday that raised new questions about whether he tried to cover up his efforts to enlist Ukraine’s help in discrediting a political rival, allies of the White House in the pro-Trump media wasted no time constructing […] Read more »
Red and Blue Voters Live in Different Economies
… Why does Trump spend so much time and energy keeping people off kilter? He has no interest in increasing the sense of security of his base. To do so would only make these voters more receptive to Democratic appeals. The relative material deprivation of many Republican voters that continued […] Read more »
The Contract With America’s legacy
… The takeaways from the 1994 GOP victory about what works and what doesn’t in campaign politics are important. But it’s what Republicans did with the victory that matters more as we reflect on the contract’s 25th anniversary. For Republicans after the election, the contract gave them the means to […] Read more »
The America That Isn’t Polarized
… Americans are living through an unusual political moment. Their political institutions are the most divided they’ve been since the period after the Civil War, according to some political science research. But how divided are Americans themselves? By some measures, around half of the population is either disengaged or has […] Read more »
The Moderate Middle Is A Myth
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Independent voters will decide the election. Or better yet: Moderate voters will decide the election. Or, wait for it … If Democrats can move to the middle, they will win in 2020. These tropes conjure up a particular image: a pivotal bloc […] Read more »
The Forces that Produced Our Uncertain World Persist
From Washington DC to Brasilia to London to Budapest, a new crop of leaders has come to power calling for the overthrow of established institutions and governing norms. … The real political trend of the last decade has been the anti-establishment fervor of voting publics, or as I like to […] Read more »