… “Partisanship can even alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgment,” the political scientists Jay J. Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira wrote in a recent paper. “The human attraction to fake and untrustworthy news” — a danger cited by political scientists far more frequently than orchestrated meddling — “poses […] Read more »
Poll Hub: Is Truth Overrated? Is Lying the New American Way?
In this episode of Poll Hub, truth. Based on results from the Exclusive Third Rail with OZY-Marist Poll, the Poll Hub team discusses whether or not honesty is alive and well in American society. CONT. Marist Poll Read more »
Infocalypse Now
In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet — so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded an alarm. A few weeks before the 2016 election, he presented his concerns to technologists in San Francisco’s Bay Area and warned of an impending crisis of […] Read more »
Exploring ‘Truth Decay’
Over the past two decades, the role of facts and analysis in American public life has been diminishing, posing a threat to democracy and policymaking. With donor support, RAND president and CEO Michael Rich initiated a project with RAND political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh to investigate the phenomenon of “Truth Decay.” […] Read more »
Trump’s Tool Kit Does Not Include the Constitution
Since before President Trump was elected — and with greater frequency afterward — historians, political scientists and journalists have wondered how autocratic our democracy might become. Here is some evidence of how the public sees it. Bright Line Watch, a consortium of political scientists formed after the 2016 election, just […] Read more »
It’s Tribalism Not Trump
There has been a lot of hand-wringing in DC these days about the way in which President Trump has undermined the legitimacy of our nation’s top law enforcement agencies. Trump’s steady stream of Twitter tirades against the FBI and the integrity of the entire Russia investigation has eroded the traditionally […] Read more »