One of the specific criteria of populist leaders according to Jan-Werner Müller is antipluralism. He writes, “[Populists] claim that they and they alone represent the people.” [1] Instead of …
Why Unpopular Politicians Win Elections: Lessons from Kentucky
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is one of the least popular politicians in the nation— and that’s not just a matter of opinion. According to a 2019 Morning Consult survey, McConnell …
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Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Power
Even though the 2020 Presidential Election was called on November 14th, escaping election news seems impossible. The last week has seen Trump's legal team file a plethora of lawsuits over supposed …
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A Recent Death, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s, Could Reshape the Court for Generations to Come
On September 18, 2020, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice passed away from pancreatic cancer leaving America on alert. She was quoted by NPR saying, “My most fervent wish is that I …
Misperception Is Reality: The Psychology of Political Polarization in the United States
Americans are not as polarized as we think we are. A new report from Beyond Conflict, a non-profit that leverages research from cognitive and behavioral science to address issues of conflict …
Loyalty Over Truth: The War Between Trump and U.S. Intelligence Agencies
On January 29, 2019, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other intelligence agency leaders appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to present their findings on the major security …
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USPS Crisis as a Case of Stealth Authoritarianism
In the 2016 U.S Presidential election, approximately 33 million voters cast their ballots by mail, which accounted for one quarter of all ballots cast. With the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented …
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Constitutional Hardball and the United States Supreme Court
In their seminal work How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify two principal constitutional guardrails that, they argue, have allowed democracy to survive in the United States …
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