We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’etat accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. … By and large, however, overt dictatorships have disappeared across much of the world. Violent seizures of power are rare. […] Read more »
The Price He Will Pay
A question I get a lot from friends and relatives is about why Donald Trump never seems to pay a price for his behavior as president. He makes overt racist insults, he attacks our allies, he disparages the free press, he obstructs justice, etc., and nothing changes—his poll numbers stay […] Read more »
Presidential-Gubernatorial Race Splits and Party Voting in 2016
While down-ballot ticket races such as Senate and House elections have become increasingly nationalized–closely correlating with state presidential vote–gubernatorial elections have not followed this path as much. As Harry Enten detailed using 2012 presidential vote and 2014 gubernatorial vote totals, several states went for presidential and gubernatorial candidates of different […] Read more »
Bill Clinton, Roy Moore and the Power of Social Identity
It may feel to Americans that an intense state of us-versus-them is something new, but it’s not. People have been using party as a lens to filter information for decades and beyond. … Political scientists for decades have thought about party identification as simultaneously being a summary of a person’s […] Read more »
Rising concerns about American democracy
Our October 2017 survey results demonstrate rising concerns about American democracy over the past month. From September to October, ratings worsened on every dimension except civil violence. Further, democracy experts still see American political behavior in 2017 as firmly outside the norm for consolidated democracies. On average, experts rate a […] Read more »
The Party of Lincoln Is Now the Party of Trump
Last year, as it became clear that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination, analysts on both the right and the left speculated that millions of regular Republicans would be repulsed by his ethnonationalism and misogyny. … Come Election Day, however, Republican voters did not abandon their party. The Republican […] Read more »