Long the dominant group in American religious life, White Christians have fallen below a majority of the U.S. population—and they are moving to the right politically as they recede. The result is that, like race and age, religious affiliation marks a sharpening point of distinction between Republicans and Democrats, previously […] Read more »
Are Diversity and Security at Odds?
The first reverberations from the Paris attacks into the U.S. presidential campaign have focused on how to confront ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But the terrorism is also pouring gasoline on the arguments already blazing over America’s identity in a time of rapid demographic change. CONT. Ronald Brownstein, National Journal Read more »
How terrorist attacks can change opinions and elections — including the 2016 election
… For the past 10 years, we have researched the connection between terrorist threat and public opinion. In our book, “Democracy at Risk,” and in our more recent work, we argue that public attitudes and evaluations shift in at least three politically relevant ways when terrorist threat is more prominent […] Read more »
Fear is making the GOP’s job easier
Politics is not only about competing views on issues. It is also, and often most importantly, about which problems come to the forefront in the public conversation and in the minds of citizens and voters. … The importance of who gets to set the agenda was brought home by a […] Read more »
Euro-Trump
… The ascendance of European far-right parties over the past decade has laid out a tempting path for Trump. The parallels between Trump’s brand of American right populism and European working-class conservatism are striking. CONT. Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times Read more »
Why the massacre in Paris might not help Europe’s far right
… Psychologists and political scientists have documented a link between terrorist attacks and public antipathy toward immigrants and minorities, but the nature of the connection depends on economic, demographic and political factors — which vary from country to country and from tragedy to tragedy. It is difficult to generalize, said […] Read more »