In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan was elected the nation’s 40th president. Blondie topped the music charts, the sequel to “Star Wars” packed movie theaters and Kamala Harris was a 16-year-old finishing high school. Nearly four decades later, Harris is a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, […] Read more »
Pennsylvania Democrats Wonder How Far Is Too Far Left in 2020
This should be an upbeat moment for Pennsylvania Democrats, desperate to deprive President Trump of a second term. In elections last year, two Trump-like Republicans running for governor and senator lost to Democrats by blowout margins. Four Democrats wrestled away Republican-held congressional seats, including Conor Lamb, whose victory here outside […] Read more »
NBC News/WSJ poll: 2020 race will be uphill for Trump, but he has strong party loyalty
A year and a half before the 2020 presidential election, President Donald Trump faces formidable obstacles in his bid for re-election, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Just four in 10 voters say they would re-elect him next year; 58 percent don’t think he’s been honest and […] Read more »
‘We’re not going to turn on our own’: Republicans rally around Trump as threats mount
… Acquiescence to Trump is now the defining trait of the Republican Party more than two years into his presidency — overwhelming and at times erasing principles that conservatives viewed as the foundation of the party for more than a half century. … In interviews over the past week, Republicans […] Read more »
From Fox News to Viral Views: The Influence of Ideological Media in the 2018 Elections
The 2018 elections marked a notable increase in the influence of ideological media over both major American parties. Conservative media sources, led by Fox News Channel, further solidified their power within the Republican Party, main-taining their traditional role of informing and mobilizing Republican voters while extending their reach to become […] Read more »
Our Culture of Contempt
… Millions of people organize their social lives and their news exposure along ideological lines to avoid people with opposing viewpoints. What’s our problem? A 2014 article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on “motive attribution asymmetry” — the assumption that your ideology is based in love, […] Read more »