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Project 2025: The Department of Veterans Affairs

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The Supreme Court is a threat to American democracy

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Project 2025: The Department of Defense

Video: New laws are driving red and blue states further apart

Video: New laws are driving red and blue states further apart
Our Staff
By Our StaffApr 03, 2023
Our Staff
The Fulcrum staff.
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In our federalist system, the states are often considered laboratories of democracy. State governments test out different policies, or even political strategies, that may someday reach the whole country or drive red and blue states further apart.

This year, FiveThirtyEight is tracking what state legislation is being proposed and passed and how Republicans and Democrats are going about things differently. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew looks at new proposals on guns, taxes, spending plans and identity.

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Governance & Legislation

Project 2025: Abortion policy

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance
Bipartisanship

Assassination attempt will fuel political extremism

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Bipartisanship

Building a future together based on a common cause

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silhouettes of people arguing in front of an America flag
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'One side will win': The danger of zero-sum framings

Elwood is the author of “Defusing American Anger” and hosts thepodcast “People Who Read People.”

Recently, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was surreptitiously recorded at a private event saying, about our political divides, that “one side or the other is going to win.” Many people saw this as evidence of his political bias. In The Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr. wrote that he disagreed with Alito’s politics but that the justice was “right about the divisions in our nation today.” The subtitle of Bacon’s piece was: “America is in the middle of a nonmilitary civil war, and one side will win.”

It’s natural for people in conflict to see it in “us versus them” terms — as two opposing armies facing off against each other on the battlefield. That’s what conflict does to us: It makes us see things through war-colored glasses.

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It takes a team

Molineaux is the lead catalyst for American Future, a research project that discovers what Americans prefer for their personal future lives. The research informs community planners with grassroots community preferences. Previously, Molineaux was the president/CEO of The Bridge Alliance.

We love heroic leaders. We admire heroes and trust them to tackle our big problems. In a way, we like the heroes to take care of those problems for us, relieving us of our citizen responsibilities. But what happens when our leaders fail us? How do we replace a heroic leader who has become bloated with ego? Or incompetent?

Heroic leaders are good for certain times and specific challenges, like uniting people against a common enemy. We find their charisma and inspiration compelling. They help us find our courage to tackle things together. We become a team, supporting the hero’s vision.

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Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump attends the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Milwaukee on July 15.

Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A presidential assassination attempt offers a time to reflect

Nye is the president and CEO of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and a former member of Congress from Virginia.

In the wake of an assassination attempt on an American presidential candidate, we are right to take a moment to reflect on the current trajectory of our politics, as we reject violence as an acceptable path and look for ways to cool the kinds of political rhetoric that might radicalize Americans to the point of normalizing brute force in our politics.

Even though the motivations of the July 13 shooter are yet unclear, it’s worth taking a moment to try to reset ourselves and make an earnest effort to listen to our better angels. However, unless we change the way we reward politicians in our electoral system, it is very likely that the opportunity of this moment to calm our politics will be lost, like many others before it.

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American flags fly near Washington Monument.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A personal note to America in troubled times

Harwood is president and founder of The Harwood Institute. This is the latest entry in his series based on the "Enough. Time to Build.” campaign, which calls on community leaders and active citizens to step forward and build together.

I wanted to address Americans after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Consider this a personal note directly to you (yes, you, the reader!). And know that I have intentionally held off in expressing my thoughts to allow things to settle a bit. There’s already too much noise enveloping our politics and lives.

Like most Americans, I am praying for the former president, his family and all those affected by last weekend’s events. There is no room for political violence in our nation.

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How Chief Justices Roberts, Marshall responded to presidential bullies

How Chief Justices Roberts, Marshall responded to presidential bullies

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

This is the latest in “A Republic, if we can keep it,” a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

Chief Justices John Roberts and John Marshall share more in common than their ordinary forename and stressful day job. They both fiercely defended the reputation of America’s courts; they both presided over thenastiest politicaltrials of their times; and they both couldn’t quite contain their disdain for some of the presidential antics that occurred under their watch.

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