Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
When I think about the tactics of the Democratic and Republican parties, I am reminded of lyrics from the Buffalo Springfield song fifty years ago:
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
Unfortunately, what is happening in politics in America is all too clear and both sides are wrong as they feed into the political circus instead of focusing on healthy governance.
This all would be funny if not for the serious implications. The dysfunction is clearly manifested by red meat rhetoric that politicians throw out to their base to score political points, rather than attempting to govern. It is so much easier for them to make statements that generate a strong emotional response from voters instead of intelligently debating the difficult choices our country faces.
And unfortunately this ploy works!
I watch with amazement as demagogy on both sides continues unimpeded and wonder how this can be until I realize that the $14 billion dollars spent in the 2020 election cycle just feeds more division, disinformation, and dysfunction. Our democracy is in crisis and the promise of healthy self-governance seems further and further away.
If you watch Fox News you’ll be inundated with pundits blasting intellectual elites, the deep state, socialist democrats, illegal aliens, and of course, cancel culture. Switch channels on the same day and tune in to MSNBC and you would think that you are living in a completely different universe. Terms such as corruption on Wall Street, big oil, police brutality, and crony capitalism are tossed around without any thought to providing a deeper analysis.
Dietram Schuefele, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin, described the rhetoric aptly when he said:
"Every tribe has its own words, basically, and it becomes more and more difficult to have conversations across tribal fault lines if we can't even agree on the terminology."
Unfortunately, the nuances in language are a part of the science of politics. Both parties spend millions of dollars gathering focus groups to learn which messaging and language engages them emotionally. To cite two examples, the term “exploring for energy” is a much gentler term than “drilling for oil” and might appeal to Democrats more, while the term “illegal aliens” arouses emotions different from “undocumented workers” and thus more likely to be used by Republicans. Similarly the terms “death tax” versus “estate tax” arouses different emotions… and the list goes on and on.
The phenomenon of code words is especially apparent with the new Republican code word du jour to incite emotions and cater to their base. The term Woke is used to disparage and dismiss anything related to a civil discussion on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Merriam-Webster in 2017 defined woke as: "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."
Rather than discuss the important nuances of diversity and inclusion with the desire to create some level of social cohesion, let’s just coin a phrase that appeals to our tribe. Let everything we don’t like be “woke.” It is now creeping into the lexicon amidst the backlash against ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) as corporations apply non-financial factors as a part of their analysis in determining their investment strategies and growth opportunities. If a company chooses to consider climate change, lack of diversity or other social issues as part of their investment strategy, let's not have a serious debate; instead let's just appeal to the emotions of the electorate and call it “woke capitalism.”
In this context, the Senate recently voted to overturn a Labor Department rule that permits fiduciary retirement fund managers to consider environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, factors in their investment decisions. Rather than debate the merits of the issue, Republicans repeat the mantra of their new code word “woke capitalism.” This moniker wipes away concern about the planet we leave for our descendants as irrelevant to a return on investment.
Of course, as politicians try to reduce complex issues to simple sound bites, rationality still prevails. Despite the ESG backlash, more and more companies are taking an ESG approach to investing and doing quite well financially. Barron’s recently published the Top 100 US Sustainable Companies using the methodology of ESG explaining the variety of metrics used.
As responsible citizens, it is imperative to understand the tactics used by politicians and be on the alert for the code words they use to excite and enrage us. It is our responsibility to see through this charade. If more and more of us stop listening to the rhetoric, they might change how they talk to us to create meaningful change.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump delivered his address days after the Supreme Court struck down the administration's tariff strategy, and amid a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf threatening Iran.
Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t
I recently watched "A Face in the Crowd" for the umpteenth time.
I had a better reason than procrastination to rewatch Elia Kazan’s brilliant 1957 film exploring populism in the television age. It was homework. I was asked to discuss it with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz at the just-concluded TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles. As a pundit and an author, I do a lot of public speaking. But I don’t really do a lot of cool public speaking, so this was a treat.
With that not-very-humble brag out of the way, I had a depressing realization watching it this time.
"A Face in the Crowd" tells the story of a charming drifter with a dark side named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played brilliantly by Andy Griffith. A singer with the gift of the gab, Rhodes takes off on radio but quickly segues to the brand-new medium of television. He becomes a national sensation — and political kingmaker — by forming a deep connection with the masses, particularly among the rural and working classes. His core audience is made up of people with grievances. “Everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle,” as Rhodes puts it.
The film’s climax (spoiler alert) comes when Rhodes’ manager and spurned lover, Marcia, turns on the microphone while the credits rolled at the end of “Cracker Barrel,” his national TV show. Rhodes tells his entourage what he really thinks of the “morons” in his audience. “Shucks, I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them for caviar. I can make them eat dog food, and they’ll think it’s steak. … Good night, you stupid idiots.”
It was a canonical “hot mic” moment in American cinema. But the idea that if people could glimpse the “real person” behind the popular facade, they’d turn on them is a very old theme in literature — think Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (1782) or Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s "The School for Scandal" (1777), in which diaries and letters do the work of microphones.
Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg were very worried about the ability of demagogues to whip up populist fervor and manipulate the masses through the power of TV, in part because everyone had already seen it happen with radio and film, by Father Coughlin in America and Hitler in Germany. But as dark as their vision was, they still clung to the idea that if the demagogue was exposed, the people would instantly turn on their leader in an “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment for the mass media age.
And that’s the source of my depressing realization. I think they were wrong. It turns out that once that organic connection is made, even a shocking revelation of the truth won’t necessarily break the spell.
In 2016, a lot of writers revisited "A Face in the Crowd" to understand the Trump phenomenon. After all, here was a guy who used a TV show — "The Apprentice" — and social media to build a massive following, going over the heads of the “establishment.” Trump’s own hot mic moment with "Access Hollywood," in which he boasted of his sexual predations, proved insufficient to undo him. That was hardly the only such moment for him. We’ve heard Trump bully the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes.” He told Bob Woodward he deliberately “played down” COVID-19. After leaving office, he was recorded telling aides he shouldn’t be sharing classified documents with them — then doing it anyway. And so on.
Trump’s famous claim that he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters may have been hyperbole. But it’s not crazy to think he wouldn’t lose as many voters as he should.
In the film, Lonesome Rhodes implodes when Americans encounter his off-air persona. The key to Trump’s success is that he ran as his off-air persona. Why people love that persona is a complicated question. Among the many complementary explanations is that he comes across as authentic, and some people value authenticity more than they value good character, honesty, or competence.
This is not just a problem for Republicans. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner once had a Nazi tattoo and has said things about women as distasteful as Trump’s “grab them by (the genitals)” comments, and the Democratic establishment is rallying around him because he’s authentic — and because Democrats want to win that race.
Many prominent MAGA loyalists are turning on Trump these days. They claim — wrongly in my opinion — that he’s changed and that the Iran war is a betrayal of their cause. But if you look at the polls, voters who describe themselves as “MAGA” still overwhelmingly support Trump. In short, he still has the Fifth Avenue voters on his side.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.