The failure of the American electorate to rise up in opposition to President Trump — whose outrages are well-documented — suggests that voters are less tolerant, less empathetic and less insistent on integrity than many believe. The election of Trump and his first three years in office have revealed a […] Read more »
Emotional Partisanship Driving Views of Healthcare
One of the defining characteristics of our age is emotional partisanship, when Americans’ political and ideological self-identities are so emotionally powerful that they become the lens through which Americans view many nonpolitical aspects of their lives. … Several articles analyzing public opinion on healthcare published by my Gallup colleagues in […] Read more »
Why Climate Change Threats Don’t Trigger An Immediate Response From Human Brains
NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert about why the human brain doesn’t respond to threats posed by climate change as quickly or proactively as seems warranted. All Things Considered, NPR Read more »
National Reality Disorder with Robert J. Lifton
This week Ana Marie Cox sits down with Robert J. Lifton to remind you how bad things have gotten politically—but that remaining optimistic is not totally insane. They begin by drawing the parallels between Trump and other cult leaders/demagogues. Afterwards, they discuss the followers of Trump, why they remain followers, […] Read more »
Voters agree with polls that favor their candidates
With the presidential election a year away, pollsters will barrage the country with poll questions to get the pulse of the voters about the candidates. But how these media-reported polls are received by the public is often viewed with skepticism. In fact, a new study by researchers at the University […] Read more »
Why haven’t we stopped climate change? We’re not wired to empathize with our descendants.
About 70 percent of Americans believe that the climate is changing, most acknowledge that this change reflects human activity, and more than two-thirds think it will harm future generations. Unless we dramatically alter our way of life, swaths of the planet will become hostile or uninhabitable later this century — […] Read more »