“Of the many factors that make up your worldview, one is more fundamental than any other in determining which side of the divide you gravitate toward: your perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our most primal instinct, after all, so it’s only logical that people’s level […] Read more »
How We View Our Reality Shapes Our Politics. But Facts Still Matter.
… The claim that perception is reality has long been a maxim in politics. That’s particularly true as it relates to the economy. And with the 2020 presidential election ramping up, how Americans feel about their financial well-being, and the country’s, has come to the foreground again. But is perception […] Read more »
The Demise of ‘The Weekly Standard’ Is a Blow to the Republican Party
The Weekly Standard announced last week that, after a 23-year run, it would cease publication. The closure of the prominent conservative news outlet isn’t just a tragedy for the field of journalism—it’s a scary sign for the future of the Republican Party. Specifically, its demise signals, in many ways, the […] Read more »
Is There Such a Thing as an Authoritarian Voter?
A recession might be just around the corner, but for experts in the field of “authoritarian studies,” these are boom times. Jonathan Weiler, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has spent much of his career studying the appeal of authoritarian figures: politicians who preach […] Read more »
Partisan Media and Political Distrust
… The evidence suggests that we may not be trapped in bubbles, that media may not cause polarization and that declining trust may not threaten democracy. But this does not mean we should rest easy. Although scholarship in political science and communications has undermined the widely held “bubble” theory of […] Read more »
The John Birch Society is still influencing American politics, 60 years after its founding
Some of the far-right group’s staff in 1976. AP Photo/J. Walter Green Christopher Towler, California State University, Sacramento The retired candy entrepreneur Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society 60 years ago to push back against what he perceived as a growing American welfare state modeled on communism and the […] Read more »