I had another dream, I had another life
Political scientist Sheri Berman has an excellent piece in The Guardian that covers some of the most relevant social science on identity politics and its implications: Rather than being directly translated into behavior, psychologists tell us beliefs can remain latent until “triggered”. In a fascinating study, Karen Stenner shows in The Authoritarian Dynamic that while … Read more
From my BYU Studies Quarterly article: A particularly interesting aspect of public attitudes toward immigration is that of political ignorance. Multiple studies have shown that political ignorance is rampant among average voters, and this holds true when it comes to immigration policy. As legal scholar Ilya Somin explains, “Immigration restriction . . . is one that has long-standing associations with political ignorance. … Read more
Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell has provided some important insights about inequality in the U.S., from zoning laws to a lack of competition among the elites. In a recent New York Times piece, he lays out the evidence against certain myths regarding the 1% in a succinct fashion. Here are some “common misconceptions” about income inequality: Trade: … Read more
From a recent study: Fake news or ‘alternative facts’ have become a key ingredient of Western political discourse. They are skillfully used by populist candidates to leverage fears and frustrations of the voters. The fake news efforts are often successful. For example, as Ipsos’ 2016 Perils of Perception survey shows, in all Western countries voters greatly overestimate … Read more
That’s what a recent essay in Foreign Affairs suggests. Political scientist George Hawley writes, The [alt-right] is disorganized and mostly anonymous, making it difficult to study systematically, and until recently its definition was up for grabs. Throughout 2016, the term “alt-right” was often applied to a much broader group than it is today; at times, … Read more
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) investigators process the scene of where a St. Anthony Police officer shot and killed 32-year-old Philando Castile (Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota; CC BY-SA 2.0) Last week, Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter after shooting Philando Castile to death. Yanez was a police officer. Castile was a law-abiding citizens with … Read more
Political ignorance is a topic I’ve been reading up on as of late. It’s a tad depressing, if not all that surprising. A brand new Brookings paper builds off this research to argue the following: Always empirically questionable at best, the populist-progressive idea that more participation will reliably improve either the products or the popularity … Read more
The latest Freedom of the World report was recently released with some worrisome–though not surprising–news: With populist and nationalist forces making significant gains in democratic states, 2016 marked the 11th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. There were setbacks in political rights, civil liberties, or both, in a number of countries rated “Free” by … Read more
[Trump’s] nationalistic view reminds me, of course, of [Juan] Peron, in some regards. – Sebastion Edwards Financial Times‘s Cardiff Garcia has an incredibly enlightening interview with UCLA economist Sebastian Edwards on the economics of populism. Garcia: …Americans have been taken off-guard by some of the phrasings of Donald Trump and what he says is part of … Read more
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order as early as Monday stating his intention to renegotiate the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, a White House official told NBC News. Economist Brad Delong commented recently, “The economic case against the two agreements that passed [NAFTA and China into … Read more