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New GEN: How Trump can erode democracy in defeat
From my new column for GEN, the new site on politics, power, and culture from Medium: Does Donald Trump present a threat to American democracy, or is the system restraining him? As last week’s debate over the Census citizenship question illustrates, the answer is often both. That’s why it’s so difficult to reach a consensus
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New GEN: 2020 polls are useless right now
From my new column for GEN, the new site on politics, power, and culture from Medium: Do the polls really show Donald Trump is headed for big trouble in his reelection campaign? That’s what you might think from watching coverage of early polls of the 2020 general election. In reality, though, it’s just too early
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New GEN: AOC is right – give Congress a raise
From my new column for GEN, the new site on politics, power, and culture from Medium: Late Monday night, the Democratic leadership in the House decided to delay a vote on a spending measure that would reinstate a cost-of-living adjustment for members for Congress. Their reasoning was simple: bad optics. Though congressional salaries have been
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New Medium: Trump as the arsonist firefighter
From my new column at Medium: One of Donald Trump’s signature moves as president is to act as both arsonist and firefighter, taking credit for resolving pseudo-crises that he in fact initiated. The latest example came Friday, when Trump declared another immigration crisis at the country’s southern border with Mexico, and threatened to impose tariffs
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New Medium: Don’t normalize election challenges
From my new column at Medium: The greatest danger of Donald Trump’s presidency is that seemingly abnormal things become seen as normal. After more than 10,000 false or misleading claims, even the president’s outrageous assertions that Democrats support the murder of live infants barely seem newsworthy. What’s even worse, however, is that other political actors
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New Bright Line Watch report on US democracy
From our new report: Prior to the release of the Mueller report and subsequent escalation of conflict between the executive and legislative branches, Bright Line Watch conducted a new wave of surveys on the quality of democracy in the United States. From March 12–21, 2019, we fielded our eighth survey of academic experts and sixth
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New Medium: Beware redaction conspiracies
From my new column at Medium: As the political world anxiously awaits the release of Robert Mueller’s report Thursday morning, much of the focus has been on what we won’t see. It’s quite likely the version that’s released to the public will be heavily redacted. Though legitimate reasons exist for the government to excise sensitive
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New Medium: Why primaries need parties
From my new column at Medium: For anyone concerned about democratic norms and the rule of law, the 2016 election offered a clear lesson: Parties need to exercise more control over candidate selection. In this era of high partisanship, the official party nomination puts any candidate within striking distance of the presidency. This great power
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New Medium: Evidence-based policy for social media
From my new column at Medium: Even now, more than two years after the 2016 election, the debate over the influence of social media on our political system still relies largely on scary anecdotes (Twitter’s 50,000-plus impostor accounts are sowing chaos!) and speculation (YouTube is turning our younger generations into conspiracy theorists!). As a result,
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New Upshot: Why vaccination laws matter most
From my new Upshot column: Social media companies face increasing scrutiny for amplifying fringe anti-vaccine sentiment amid measles outbreaks in several states like Washington. In response, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest recently made headlines by announcing initiatives to reduce vaccine misinformation on their platforms. But the focus on anti-vaccine content on social media can obscure the