As President Trump weighs his options over how to respond to international events such as news out of Iran and North Korea, he’ll surely do so with an eye toward how his decisions will be received by the American public. But lest anyone think that the president has a feel […] Read more »
Trump Needs His Base to Burn With Anger
… Trump portrays his political opponents — Democrats are “sick people” and the media are “enemies of the people” — as threats to the social order, aware that tapping into voter anger and anxiety is one of the most effective tools to drive up election turnout. Alex Gage, head of […] Read more »
In-Group Love Versus Out-Group Hate: Which Is More Important to Partisans and When?
Affective polarization is on the rise, driving historically high levels of negative feelings towards out party members. When political intergroup conflict occurs, what is the primary reaction that people have: do they run to defend their in-group, or do they lash out against the out-group? Are there conditions under which […] Read more »
What Roy Moore tells us about the Republican Party — an update
When Roy Moore announced on June 20 that he would run again for the Senate in 2020, an array of Republican politicians responded with undisguised scorn. … Why doesn’t the vehement condemnation of so many prominent Republican politicians necessarily kill off Moore’s electoral chances? The answer is that the distribution […] Read more »
Six political scientists react to the first Democratic primary debates
A good event for the upper tier of candidates, a bad one for Biden, and a forgettable one for the ones you’ve already forgotten. CONT. Mischiefs of Faction Read more »
If Trump backs down from his latest Iran threat, will he lose support? We checked.
On Tuesday, President Trump tweeted a warning to Iran that an attack “on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.” The threat comes days after the New York Times reported that Trump backed down from retaliating against Iran for downing […] Read more »