The divide between urban and rural voters is growing everywhere: from New York City to farm towns.
Authors: Ian Chipman, Jonathan Rodden | Source: Stanford University (May 2, 2017) | Subjects: America, Excerpts, International, Politics & Public Policy
Alec Nevala-Lee, author of Astounding, a forthcoming book on the history of science fiction, digs into the writing career of L. Ron Hubbard, gaining new insights into the life of the controversial founder of dianetics and the origins and nature of Scientology itself.
Source: Longreads (February 1, 2017) | Subjects: Excerpts, Literature | Arts, Religion
Emily Ekins has identified five different types of voters that elected Donald Trump as president. Do these groups represent a shift in American politics?
Author: Emily Ekins | Source: Libertarianism.org (July 14, 2017) | Subjects: Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
This article presents an overview of the Schwartz theory of basic human values. It discusses the nature of values and spells out the features that are common to all values and what distinguishes one value from another. The theory identifies ten basic personal values that are recognized across cultures and explains where they come from. At the heart of the theory is the idea that … [ Read more ]
Author: Shalom H. Schwartz | Source: Readings in Psychology and Culture (February2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior, Values
A lot of good, honorable Republicans used to believe there was a safe middle ground. […] Now it’s clear that middle ground doesn’t exist. That’s because Donald Trump never stops asking. First, he asked the party to swallow the idea of a narcissistic sexual harasser and a routine liar as its party leader. Then he asked the party to accept his comprehensive ignorance and his … [ Read more ]
Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (December 7, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
In a new book, the writer Alan Jacobs looks at why it’s impossible for people who disagree to hold a civilized conversation.
Author: Emma Green | Source: The Atlantic (October 15, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
You may be happy to learn that even though they are a political nightmare to pull off, U.S. tax overhauls have happened on a schedule — like clockwork, and the timer happens to go off again next year. Given that history and necessity are about to collide, Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid got curious about what tried-and-true solutions America could implement to make that next … [ Read more ]
Author: T.R. Reid | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton (September 8, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Taxation
The Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie once observed that there are “two Americas” — one at home and one abroad. The first is the America of Hollywood, work-in-progress democracy, civil rights movements and Ellis Island. The second is the America of coups and occupations, military dictators and CIA plots, economic meddling and contempt for foreign cultures. The rest of the world knows both Americas. But as … [ Read more ]
Author: Suzy Hansen | Source: The Washington Post (September 8, 2017) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Kate Raworth, a senior research associate at Oxford University and senior associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, wants to challenge the old ways of thinking about economics and develop sustainable new patterns for economic growth. In her book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Raworth encourages careful consideration of measurements beyond the standard gross domestic product metric. Thoughtful economic … [ Read more ]
Author: Kate Raworth | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton (June 28, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts
“Many people say” is what’s known as an argumentum ad populum. If we were a nation of logicians, we would dismiss the argument as dumb.
I think it’s important not to dismiss the president’s reply simply as dumb. We ought to assume that it’s darkly brilliant — if not in intention then certainly in effect. The president is responding to a claim of fact not by … [ Read more ]
Author: Bret Stephens | Source: Time (February 21, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Journalism, News | Media | Publishing, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Author: Chris Ladd | Source: Forbes (July 20, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
Doctors Haidt and Graham […] argue that there is great debate over the nature of right and wrong, but that the debate is over the meaning of five moral foundations rather than over what morality is — most of the time. Those five foundations are:
Author: Scotty Hendricks | Source: Big Think (April 1, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Excerpts, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Values
Author Mugambi Jouet dissects the causes of deep chasms within American society from an outsider’s viewpoint.
Author: Mugambi Jouet | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton (July 26, 2017) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Culture, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Why are economically struggling blue collar voters rejecting a party that offers to expand public safety net programs? The reality is that the bulk of needy white voters are not interested in the public safety net. They want to restore their access to an older safety net, one much more generous, dignified, and stable than the public system – the one most well-employed voters still … [ Read more ]
Author: Chris Ladd | Source: Forbes (March 13, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Health & Medicine, Politics & Public Policy
The Republican Party has changed since 2005. It has become the vehicle for white identity politics. In 2005 only six percent of Republicans felt that whites faced “a great deal” of discrimination, the same number of Democrats who felt this. By 2016, the percentage of Republicans who felt this had tripled.
Recent surveys suggest that roughly 47 percent of Republicans are what you might call conservative … [ Read more ]
Author: David Brooks | Source: The New York Times (August 29, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Race Relations, Trump
Our national political polarization is by now so well established that the only real debate is over the nature of our cultural, political, and religious conflict. Are we in the midst of a more or less conventional culture war? Are we, as Dennis Prager and others argue, fighting a kind of “cold” civil war? Or are we facing something else entirely?
I’d argue that we face … [ Read more ]
Author: David French | Source: National Review (June 8, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Political scientist Alexander George Theodoridis, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced, is an expert on the hyper-polarized climate. He wrote in Scientific American, “My own research repeatedly shows that partisanship for many Americans today takes the form of a visceral, even subconscious, attachment to a party group.”
The consequences are that politicians are rewarded by their base for obstructionism, while punished for working … [ Read more ]
Author: Philip Perry | Source: Big Think (June 6, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
[Lakoff] understands that the way to get at people’s political opinions is by talking about values, rather than specific arguments about specific issues. He believes conservatives are much better at this than liberals and have been for a very long time. They have a much better track record of crafting political appeals by way of the appropriate value statements for their audience.
[…]
Lakoff’s core finding revolves … [ Read more ]
Authors: Daphne White, George Lakoff | Source: Berkeleyside (May 2, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Values
In 2009, I helped sketch out a marketing campaign for an internet personality and blogger named Tucker Max. With a very limited advertising budget available for the independent movie he had written and produced, we had few options for getting the word out.
Maybe it was crazy but my thinking was that one of the best ways to get young men to go see a movie … [ Read more ]
Author: Ryan Holiday | Source: Observer (February 17, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
Since the election of Donald Trump, there’s been no shortage of theories as to why America’s social contract no longer seems to work—why the United States feels so divided and dysfunctional. Some have focused on how hyper-partisanship has dismantled traditional checks and balances on public decision-making, how Barack Obama’s rise to power exacerbated the racist tendencies of embittered reactionaries, and how former churchgoers have embraced … [ Read more ]
Author: Jonathan Kay | Source: The Atlantic (July 17, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, International, Politics & Public Policy, Taxation