Grass-roots movements can be the life and death of political leaders. It’s a well-worn story now about how John A. Boehner, then House minority leader, joined a rising star in his caucus, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, in April 2009 for one of the first major tea party protests in the California […] Read more »
United by post-inauguration marches, Democratic women plan to step up activism
Days into Donald Trump’s presidency, large numbers of liberals say they plan to step up their political activity, with Democratic women particularly motivated to take action, according to a new Washington Post poll. The results suggest that the “women’s marches” immediately after Trump’s inauguration, which brought hundreds of thousands of […] Read more »
Divided States of America: How ‘Obamacare’ Became a Symbol of America’s Divide
As President Barack Obama prepares to leave office and Donald Trump’s inauguration approaches, the Republican-led Congress is debating how to dismantle one of Obama’s signature efforts: The Affordable Care Act. Enacted in 2010, and initially dubbed “Obamacare” by critics, the law has expanded health insurance for millions. But as FRONTLINE’s […] Read more »
Donald Trump and the Triumph of Climate-Change Denial
Denial of the broad scientific consensus that human activity is the primary cause of global warming could become a guiding principle of Donald Trump’s presidential administration. … Scientific reality does not seem to have escaped the distorting influence of political polarization in the United States. A paper published in Environment […] Read more »
Why Blue States Are the Real ‘Tea Party’
When the modern Tea Party movement coalesced in the early days of the Obama presidency, its allusion to the political grievances of the protesters in Boston Harbor a couple of hundred years earlier seemed plausible enough: Its members felt that their taxes were too high and their interests not adequately […] Read more »
Donald Trump and the Politics of Disjunction
… One of the strongest pieces of evidence we have that Trump is facing a politics of disjunction is that the Republican Party was already in the midst of a civil war when he emerged on the scene. The fight between Tea Party and establishment Republicans eventually led to a […] Read more »