The cover of the April 21 issue of The Economist asked, “What’s become of the Republican Party?” Inside, the article was headlined, “How the elephant got its Trump,” beginning with a quote from a speech that Sen. Jeff Flake made in March: “Never has a party abandoned, fled its principles […] Read more »
The Road To Unfreedom
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder speaks with Robert Siegel about the rise of authoritarianism. On Point, WBUR Read more »
The divided public heart
What drives political change – culture or economics? The surge of the Right in the United States and Europe in the past two years has renewed debate on this important question. On one side, the cultural determinists attribute Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of European populist movements to nativism, […] Read more »
President Trump Is a Very Political Animal
President Trump has an almost Apollonian daytime argument in favor of his continued political dominance, which is “Jobs Jobs Jobs!,” “MAGA!” and so forth. He also has a nighttime argument about decline, racial resentment and ethnic hatred. He pushes both strains hard, but the evidence suggests that his heart is […] Read more »
Whites’ Unease Shadows the Politics of a More Diverse America
… Mr. Trump’s rise to the presidency prompted widespread efforts to understand the motivations of the white working-class voters who propelled him into the White House. It fueled scorching debates over the role that racism played in the presidential election. Economists proposed that workers in distress because of trade and […] Read more »
As Population Growth Slows, Populism Surges
… The last time that populism — what we broadly define as political movements that ostensibly set the interests of “ordinary people” against elites as well as an “other” — swept across Europe and the United States was marked by the same combination of slow economic and fertility growth that […] Read more »