Donald Trump is running for the presidency of an America that no longer exists. Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly reprised two of Richard Nixon’s most memorable rallying cries, promising to deliver “law and order” for the “silent majority.” But in almost every meaningful way, America today is a radically […] Read more »
Biden builds lead as Trump goes from trailing to flailing
As recently as one month ago, Donald Trump was merely losing. Now he is flailing, trudging into the Independence Day weekend at the nadir of his presidency, trailing by double digits in recent polls and in danger of dragging the Republican Senate down with him. But there are still four […] Read more »
How The GOP Chose To Be A White Party
In general, the Republican Party gets between 5 and 10 percent of the Black vote and less than a third of the Hispanic vote nationally. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Clare Malone discusses the series of choices the GOP made, spanning decades, that made it an overwhelmingly […] Read more »
Trump May Compare Himself to Nixon in 1968, but He Really Resembles Wallace
President Trump said last month that he had “learned a lot from Richard Nixon,” and many interpreted his hard-line response to the street protests of recent days as a homage of sorts to the 1968 campaign. The president’s Twitter feed has been filled with phrases famous from the Nixon lexicon […] Read more »
Silent majorities are a misnomer
A few days ago, President Donald Trump tweeted, “SILENT MAJORITY!” amid the recent protests. The President may be hoping that there is a group of people who support him and his positions, yet aren’t being captured by the popular zeitgeist. The polling, of course, suggests that Trump is in a […] Read more »
The ‘Hard Hat Riot’ Was a Preview of Today’s Political Divisions
This was something genuinely new, and raw. Even jaded viewers tuning in to the network news on May 8, 1970, must have been shocked to see helmeted construction workers waving enormous American flags and chanting “All the way, U.S.A.” as they tore through an antiwar demonstration in Manhattan’s financial district […] Read more »