Is Political Talk Getting Smarter?
Remember: “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” These words adorn the website of Frank Luntz’s consulting firm, The Word Doctors. In the last decade, the renowned strategist has substantially...
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America Not as Politically Conservative as You Think
Among the many memes floating around in the wake of the 2010 election is that America has taken a rightward turn, and conservative pundits seem re-energized in calling America a center-right nation....
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Misinformation is as Close as Your Inbox
The most troubling technological threat to civil, informed political discourse can be summed up in three words: You’ve got mail. A newly published study of Internet usage and political knowledge...
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Political Infamy Is Raising Money — For Both Sides
One bored weekend in the fall of 2009, political scientist Justin Buchler was sitting at his computer thinking about the things we think about when we think about Michele Bachmann. He typed the...
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The Psychology of Political Stubbornness
Politicians: They’re slick and soulless, shifting positions shamelessly to stay ahead of public opinion. Unless they’re ridiculously rigid and inflexible, sticking to their principles even when doing...
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Mapping the (11) Divisions in American Society
Colin Woodard suggests that we’ve been vastly oversimplifying things by talking about America’s internal divisions between red states and blue states, between “the coasts” and the “heartland,” between...
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#OWS: Have We Entered the Age of Protest?
The Occupy Wall Street movement is in many ways a sign of the moment. The unemployment rate has been hanging out around 9 percent for more than two years. Income inequality is rising. Washington’s...
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Reintroducing Paul Goodman, the ‘Public Intellectual’
Once upon a time, there was something called a “public intellectual,” and writer/pacifist/political radical/bisexual Paul Goodman was practically its template. Brilliant and witty, a New Left guru and...
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Tarring Opponents as Extremists Really Can Work
Back in 2002, when the male-only, members-only Augusta National golf club was picked to host the Masters Tournament, advocates of equality for women were taken aback. They wanted the tournament moved...
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Conservatives’ Politics of Fear a Biological Response
The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longer than Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these...
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Great Debate: Will Politicians Answer the Question?
During the Republican primary debate in Arizona a couple of weeks ago, CNN moderator John King asked one of those slightly askew questions that’s designed to poke through the candidates’ finely tuned...
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