Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ugly campaign ads and car wrecks: Why we can't turn away

Person being overloaded with messaging

Political ads are expected to increase by 25 percent over 2020.

AndreyPopov

Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “ Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”

If you live in a battleground state, here’s a little nugget to ruin your week.

Reuters says political advertising in the upcoming campaigns will be up more than 25 percent from 2020 and will likely exceed $13 billion. The radio, TV and internet bombardment is just around the corner for swing state voters.


They are already heading for the air raid shelters inErie, Pa., as the barrage rains down from the skies in the bellwether county. Since 2008 there have been 25 statewide elections in Pennsylvania, and this northwestern corner has picked the winner 92 percent of the time.

Mary Buchert, an Erie swing voter, is one of the “political orphans” featured in my podcast, “Lost in the Middle.” She freely admits she hates the ads but finds herself staring at them. “It’s like rubbernecking at an accident, “she said.

In 2022, Pennsylvania Democrats launched a new dangerous strategy that was soon deployed nationwide. During the gubernatorial primary race that year, they spent millions against the moderate Republican campaigning – in order to ensure their candidate would run against a Trump acolyte in the general election.

When they used the same tactics to beat a moderate Michigan Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump, a cadre of prominent Democrats wrote to the national Democratic Party saying it was a very risky gamble.

Former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer was a leader of the pushback. “To me it’s wrong on so many levels. Why would we risk promoting an election denier? Keep playing this game and you will eventually lose.”

But his warnings went unheeded this spring when the Democrats played the same cards to help a Trumper win the Republican Senate primary in Ohio.

Erie businessman Tim Wachter is delighted he won’t see all of the negative ads this cycle. Once very active in politics, the 2022 election drove him to cancel his cable.

“Once you extract yourself from all of it, it’s really quite liberating,” he said.

Ugly campaign ads and car wrecks: Why we can't turn away by Scott Klug

Read on Substack

Read More

True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper
Ai technology, Artificial Intelligence. man using technology smart robot AI, artificial intelligence by enter command prompt for generates something, Futuristic technology transformation.
Getty Images - stock photo

True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper

A few years ago, I would have agreed with the argument that the most important AI regulatory issue is mitigating the low probability of catastrophic risks. Today, I’d think nearly the opposite. My primary concern is that we will fail to realize the already feasible and significant benefits of AI. What changed and why do I think my own evolution matters?

Discussion of my personal path from a more “safety” oriented perspective to one that some would label as an “accelerationist” view isn’t important because I, Kevin Frazier, have altered my views. The point of walking through my pivot is instead valuable because it may help those unsure of how to think about these critical issues navigate a complex and, increasingly, heated debate. By sharing my own change in thought, I hope others will feel welcomed to do two things: first, reject unproductive, static labels that are misaligned with a dynamic technology; and, second, adjust their own views in light of the wide variety of shifting variables at play when it comes to AI regulation. More generally, I believe that calling myself out for a so-called “flip-flop” may give others more leeway to do so without feeling like they’ve committed some wrong.

Keep ReadingShow less
People on their phones. ​

In order to achieve scale, many civic efforts must also reach Americans as media consumers, where Americans currently spend much more time.

Getty Images, Xavier Lorenzo

Reaching Americans As Media Consumers – Not Only As Participants – To Improve the Political Environment

Current efforts to improve how Americans think and feel about those across the political spectrum overwhelmingly rely on participation. Participation usually involves interpersonal interaction, mostly to have dialogues or to collectively work on a project together.

These can be valuable, but in order to achieve scale, many efforts must also reach Americans as media consumers, where Americans currently spend much more time.

Keep ReadingShow less
Scams Targeting Immigrants Take Advantage of Fears of Immigration Status and Deportation

Scam incoming call alert screen on mobile phone.

Getty Images/Stock Photo

Scams Targeting Immigrants Take Advantage of Fears of Immigration Status and Deportation

WASHINGTON–When my phone rang and I saw the familiar DC area code, I picked up, and a man with a slight Indian accent said: “Ma’am, this is the Indian Embassy.”

Expecting a response from the Indian Embassy for an article I was working on, I said, “Is this in regards to my media inquiry?” He said no. He was calling about a problem with my Indian passport. I asked who he called, and when he said a name I didn’t recognize, I informed him he had the wrong person and hung up, figuring it was a scam.

Keep ReadingShow less
The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A street vendor selling public domain Donald Trump paraphernalia and souvenirs. The souvenirs are located right across the street from the White House and taken on the afternoon of July 21, 2019 near Pennslyvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Getty Images, P_Wei

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A common point of bewilderment today among many of Trump’s “establishment” critics is the all too tepid response to Trump’s increasingly brazen shattering of democratic norms. True, he started this during his first term, but in his second, Trump seems to relish the weaponization of his presidency to go after his enemies and to brandish his corrupt dealings, all under the Trump banner (e.g. cyber currency, Mideast business dealings, the Boeing 747 gift from Qatar). Not only does Trump conduct himself with impunity but Fox News and other mainstream media outlets barely cover them at all. (And when left-leaning media do, the interest seems to wane quickly.)

Here may be the source of the puzzlement: the left intelligentsia continues to view and characterize MAGA as a political movement, without grasping its transcendence into a new dominant cultural order. MAGA rose as a counter-establishment partisan drive during Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent first administration; however, by the 2024 election, it became evident that MAGA was but the eye of a full-fledged cultural shift, in some ways akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Keep ReadingShow less