COVID masked America’s underlying cultural foment. A global pandemic draws focus, for sure. But as we reemerge from hiding, so do our cultural discontents. Now, rather than debate about whether the pandemic is real or not – as we did for the past year – we’re moving on to other […] Read more »
Trump’s still waging a war on truth — and it’s still bad for democracy
… Eight months after he lost convincingly to President Biden, Trump and his followers are studiously maintaining an alternative reality — and having remarkable success keeping the fiction alive. … There’s no mystery why Trump wants to keep his baseless narrative alive. The fiction transforms him from a loser to, […] Read more »
Whether Republicans Get Vaccinated Has A Lot To Do With If They Watch Fox News … Or OANN
… Fox News is still king among Republicans. But the growing popularity of OANN and Newsmax is important: According to our research, Republicans’ stances on certain issues might be better predicted by their television news habits than by whether they identify as conservative, moderate or liberal. We found in our […] Read more »
Can Disinformation Be Stopped?
“STOP THE STEAL” was first trotted out during the 2016 Republican primaries. As the Republican National Convention approached, Donald Trump’s campaign consultant Roger Stone coined the phrase, urging people to resist the allegedly corrupt “establishment” Republicans who wouldn’t let Trump win. When he prevailed, it became irrelevant. Stone brought the […] Read more »
Democratic Report Raises 2022 Alarms on Messaging and Voter Outreach
Democrats defeated President Donald J. Trump and captured the Senate last year with a racially diverse coalition that delivered victories by tiny margins in key states like Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. In the next election, they cannot count on repeating that feat, a new report warns. A review of the […] Read more »
The GOP push to revisit 2020 has worrisome implications for future elections
Donald Trump’s “big lie” has spawned a movement that under the guise of assuring election integrity threatens to do the opposite, potentially affecting the election process with questionable challenges that could block or delay the certification of results and undermine an essential pillar of democratic governance. Trump’s refusal to accept […] Read more »