Democracy is facing its most significant challenge of recent years. Worldwide, the uneven distribution of economic progress and unrelenting pace of change have tested the capacity of democratic institutions and their leaders to deliver. At the same time, authoritarian regimes and populist national movements have seized the opportunity to undermine […] Read more »
Initial Thoughts in the Aftermath of Crowley’s Defeat
In the biggest surprise of 2018 so far, House Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley (NY-14) lost his primary to 28-year-old former Bernie Sanders organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 58 percent to 42 percent. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialist who favors abolishing ICE, is now a lock to represent the Queens and Bronx seat. […] Read more »
What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory says about the Democratic Party and 2020
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset of Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th District’s Democratic primary is sending shockwaves through Washington. A lot of people are asking how she pulled it off. Like many shocking victories, there probably isn’t one cause. But a number of the different factors that likely catapulted […] Read more »
Red Hens, babies & the great unraveling
At the risk of alienating friends, I want to delve, not too deeply, into the now infamous incident at the Red Hen of Lexington, Va. (not to be confused with the unrelated Red Hen of Washington, D.C.). … Three Chicago-area psychologists recently proved experimentally what this incident demonstrates anecdotally: both […] Read more »
How Can Size of Community Still Matter?
Once upon a time (actually about 50 years ago) when I started doing research on social psychological differences between urban and rural people, many authorities dismissed the whole question as out of date. Sure, city-country cultural differences were once vast and important, but in the modern era of interstate highways, […] Read more »
A New Regional Paradigm for Following U.S. Elections
Geopolitics is defined as the interrelationship of politics, economics, demographics and geography, and can influence not only elections, but delineate new political power centers and political strategies. Regional groupings of states that are organized around cultural and demographic similarities as well as geography can provide important ways of approaching U.S. […] Read more »