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An abstract grid wall of shipping containers, unevenly arranged with some jutting out, all decorated in the colors and patterns of the USA flag. A prominent percentage sign overlays the grid.

Tariffs on Trial: The Supreme Court’s Hidden Battle for Balance

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Two people in business attire walking into an office.

How Do We Become the Gatekeepers?

Pete Hegseth walking in a congressional hallway

The War against DEI Is Gonna Kill Us

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Podcast: Why politics makes us depressed — and what we can do about it

Podcast: Why politics makes us depressed — and what we can do about it
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMar 03, 2023
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Many of us can conjure moments when politics made us feel sad. But how often do those feelings translate into more serious forms of depression or other mental health issues? And if politics does make us depressed, what do we do about it?

Christopher Ojeda has spent the past few years exploring these questions and he joins the Democracy Works podcast to talk about the relationship between depression and democracy.

Ojeda is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California Merced and author of the forthcoming book The Sad Citizen: How Politics Makes Us Depressed. He visited Penn State to give a sneak preview of this important work on the relationship between democratic engagement and individual mental health. Ojeda discussed how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our mental health in the process.

Listen here.

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Fulcrum Fellowship to Double Reach in 2026
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Fulcrum Fellowship to Double Reach in 2026

A woman speaking in front of an audience.
Democracy

Wins for Women Offer a Blueprint for the Future

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A stethoscope, calculator, pills, and cash.

America’s healthcare debate misses the real crisis: soaring care costs. Discover how inattentional blindness hides the $5.6T gorilla reshaping policy, work, and rural communities.

Getty Images, athima tongloom

America’s $5.6 Trillion Healthcare Gorilla: Why We’re Blind to the Real Crisis

In the late 1990s, two Harvard psychologists ran a now-famous experiment. In it, students watched a short video of six people passing basketballs. They were told to count the number of passes made by the three players in white shirts.

Halfway through the film, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the frame, beats its chest, and exits. Amazingly, half of viewers — both then and in later versions of the study — never notice the gorilla. They’re so focused on counting passes that they miss the obvious event happening right in front of them.

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A stethoscope, calculator, pills, and cash.

America’s healthcare debate misses the real crisis: soaring care costs. Discover how inattentional blindness hides the $5.6T gorilla reshaping policy, work, and rural communities.

Getty Images, athima tongloom

America’s $5.6 Trillion Healthcare Gorilla: Why We’re Blind to the Real Crisis

In the late 1990s, two Harvard psychologists ran a now-famous experiment. In it, students watched a short video of six people passing basketballs. They were told to count the number of passes made by the three players in white shirts.

Halfway through the film, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the frame, beats its chest, and exits. Amazingly, half of viewers — both then and in later versions of the study — never notice the gorilla. They’re so focused on counting passes that they miss the obvious event happening right in front of them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis
person's hand
Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis

There is a significant distinction between charity and justice. Charity responds to visible wounds in the community and rushes to bandage them as necessary. Justice, rooted in biblical conviction and prophetic courage, goes further. It questions the sources of suffering: Why are people bleeding in the first place? This tension between crisis response and deeper transformation is at the core of a courageous step recently taken by Atlanta's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

As the nation grapples with democratic strain and institutional fatigue, New Birth's decision to suspend the collection of tithes and offerings during a government shutdown and amid the threatened rollback of social supports is a daring example of moral clarity. It is more than an act of relief; it is a refusal to proceed with business as usual when the most economically vulnerable are again being asked to bear the highest costs. The pause is not merely financial; I believe it is prophetic. An assertion that the church's highest duty is to its people, not its ledger.

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