Throughout US history, judges, scholars, and citizens have argued about how to go about interpreting the US Constitution. The current Supreme Court has embraced a methodology called “originalism” or “original public meaning.” But what exactly is “originalism”? What is its backstory? How does it differ from other approaches to interpretation? Are there good arguments for and against it? How does the Court’s focus on this one methodology shape its decisions and affect our lives? Three distinguished authorities will help us understand originalism and its discontents.
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Singer Megan Thee Stallion performs at a Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta on July 30.
Julia Beverly/Getty Images
Do Charli XCX’s and Kid Rock’s endorsements make a difference? 19% of young people admit they might.
Sep 04, 2024
Longoria is an associate professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
British pop star Charli XCX sent many young people’s group text chats and social media feeds wild when she endorsed Kamala Harris by playing off a term she coined in a song, and posted on X, that “kamala IS brat.”
While this endorsement, which happened in July 2024, likely means very little to most adults who don’t follow the singer’s music, it is considered high praise among young people. Harris’ campaign astutely embraced Charli XCX’s support – temporarily changing the background of its X profile to the same shade of lime green that Charlie XCX favors.
Celebrities, including singer John Legend and actors Octavia Spencer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, are all making appearances at the Democratic National Convention, which runs Aug. 19-24.
Several celebrities, including wrestler Hulk Hogan and singer Jason Aldean, appeared at the Republican National Convention in July.
So far, a range of other celebrities, including actor Jeff Bridges, the singer Cher, movie director Spike Lee and comedian Amy Schumer, among others, have endorsed Harris.
Meanwhile, comedian Roseanne Barr, as well as singer Kid Rock, model Amber Rose and actor Jon Voight have endorsed Trump.
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Some researchers have estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him an additional 1 million votes.
But overall, research shows that celebrity political endorsements don’t matter enough to determine an election’s results.
If celebrity endorsements don’t shift an election, then why do political campaigns seek them out?
The answer is that they still do matter and for many different reasons. Celebrities can easily get media attention, act as campaign surrogates, expand the voter base and make campaign contributions. All these things can help a candidate win.
What guides voters and celeb endorsements
Not many people will admit that they voted for a candidate because Oprah Winfrey or another celebrity told them to – so survey research will rarely find that celebrity endorsements are meaningful.
About 89% of adults also said in February 2020 that they wouldn’t switch their vote because of a celebrity endorsement.
However, this leaves 11% of American adults who said that they might change their preferred candidate based on what a celebrity said. Another 19% of younger voters also said in this same poll that a celebrity could help change their vote.
In a close election, these voters at the margins could change a candidate’s fortunes.
Celebrities can help keep a politician in the news cycle – and a celebrity endorsement gives candidates an extra opportunity to distribute their message to a public audience.
Whether it is Jeff Bridges – who played “The Dude” in the 1998 movie “The Big Lebowski” – speaking at a “White dudes for Harris” Zoom meeting, or the pro-Trump singer Kid Rock hosting a series of “Rock the Country” concerts, celebrity endorsements can also help candidates target specific demographic groups.
Celebrities also benefit when they get involved in politics because they, too, depend on staying relevant.
By weighing in on political issues, celebrities can keep themselves in the limelight and promote their personal brand. There is a risk, however, that a celebrity might alienate fans and business partners who don’t share their political views.
A strong online presence
Celebrities can also get a lot of media attention when they disagree with a politician or are offended by what they say.
For example, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has said that “the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.”
His 2021 comments about the country being run by “childless cat ladies” also resurfaced in July 2024.
Actress Jennifer Aniston and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg went on the counteroffensive, stating that there are many reasons some women don’t have children, including fertility challenges.
“I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States,” Aniston wrote on Instagram.
“All I can say is … Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”
Expanding the electorate base
Celebrities can also effectively encourage people to register to vote or to actually vote. In September 2023, singer Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote with a link to vote.org.
The site saw a 1,226% increase in traffic, and over 35,000 new voters registered within an hour of her post.
There is speculation this election that Swift will formally back Harris, as she did President Joe Biden during the 2020 election. Some Swift fans have looked for clues of a possible endorsement, including that a Swift dancer – who wore a pantsuit during a recent concert – appeared to resemble Harris.
Trump falsely claimed on Aug. 18 that Swift endorsed him, posting an AI-generated image on Truth Social that showed an image of Swift and said, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”
While Swift has not issued any endorsement one way or another, Swift’s fans have organized a “Swifties4Kamala” movement that has more than 180,000 followers across social media.
Celebrities still have political influence
Celebrity political endorsements are unlikely to change a voter’s core values or sway voters who are already closely following politics and are familiar with the different candidates and what they stand for.
But celebrities still have cultural influence and could encourage people who are not closely engaged in politics or an election to vote for or support a candidate in other ways, such as with donations.
And research also shows that celebrities are especially likely to shape the political opinions of younger voters.
Even if a celebrity endorsement is not the primary reason any voter would select a particular candidate, the celebrity endorsement might have value for some people. And in a close election, it can be just a few thousand votes that matter.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Project 2025: The Department of Justice
Sep 03, 2024
Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.
The preamble of the Constitution sets up our national aspiration of a government by “We the People” as the basis of a democratic republic predicated on “justice.”
These powerful words have withstood the test of time for over 250 years:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
And of course, in the Pledge of Allegiance, we describe a nation that provides “justice for all.”
Justice, and how we define and implement it, is critical to the health of our democracy. Yet, to this day, our nation has many diverging views on what “justice for all” truly means and how this justice should be implemented in the laws of the land. This debate is not only a matter for our legislators but has also been a focal point for philosophers and theologians for centuries.
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In the abstract, justice is simply fairness. However, when it comes to specifics, the debate rages across the land on what fairness means with respect to race, sexual orientation, gender and more.
Nowhere is this debate more apparent than in Project 2025, an 887-page manifesto prepared by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. The playbook, designed as a guide for the first 180 days of a future Trump administration, highlights the Department of Justice as a critical battleground for establishing a conservative vision of justice.
Chapter 17, titled “The Department of Justice,” argues that reforming the DOJ is crucial to the success of the entire agenda outlined in Project 2025. The authors make a bold claim:
"Not reforming the Department of Justice will also guarantee the failure of that conservative Administration’s agenda in countless other ways.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a key architect of Project 2025, underscored this priority when he told The New York Times in January, “[W]e just disagree wholly that the Department of Justice is independent of the president or the executive branch.” This perspective is emblematic of a broader strategy to bring the DOJ under close control of the executive, emphasizing that “the DOJ must be refocused on the rule of law and away from its current role as a political weapon.”
Robert’s statement on the DOJ’s use as a “political weapon” by the current Democratic administration stands in direct contrast to a statement he made regarding the department and the 2020 election:
“With respect to the 2020 presidential election, there were no DOJ investigations of the appropriateness or lawfulness of state election guidance. ... The Pennsylvania Secretary of State should have been (and still should be) investigated and prosecuted for potential violations.”
This juxtaposition speaks to the vast reach and changes proposed in Project 2025 for the Justice Department, the essence of justice in America and what “justice for all” might come to mean.
Project 2025’s proposed reforms include replacing career civil servants with a "vast expansion" of political appointees, overturning the current “politicization and weaponization” of the DOJ, and conducting a thorough review of the FBI. The vision is to shift the DOJ towards a more conservative interpretation of law enforcement and justice, which includes prosecuting voter fraud, transferring responsibility to the DOJ's criminal division, and halting investigations of groups engaged in lawful and constitutionally protected activities.
How might some of these reforms be specifically implemented? The answer is exemplified in this one radical sentence: "Promptly and properly eliminate ... all existing consent decrees.”
The Justice Department typically hands down consent decrees to local jurisdictions following investigations into police wrongdoing. As just one example, these decrees have historically compelled jails to improve their conditions or police departments to consider their tactics and report back to the Justice Department. This change would drastically impact the oversight of local law enforcement and the protection of civil rights.
The implications of Project 2025 on justice in America extend beyond the DOJ. The cultural agenda embedded within the project is also significant. As stated on the fourth and fifth pages of the playbook:
“The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
Understanding how the proposed changes to the Department of Justice intersect with Project 2025’s cultural agenda is crucial. Together, they have the potential to fundamentally alter and undermine the application of justice in America, challenging the very foundation of our Constitution’s preamble: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
- A cross-partisan approach
- An Introduction
- Rumors of Project 2025’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
- Department of Education
- Managing the bureaucracy
- Department of Defense
- Department of Energy
- The Environmental Protection Agency
- Education Savings Accounts
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Department of Homeland Security
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Affirmative action
- A federal Parents' Bill of Rights
- Department of Labor
- Intelligence community
- Department of State
- Department of the Interior
- Federal Communications Commission
- A perspective from Europe
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Voting Rights Act
- Another look at the Federal Communications Commission
- A Christo-fascist manifesto designing a theocracy
- The Schedule F threat to democracy
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Rioters breached Capitol security and stormed the building Jan. 6 after attending a rally led by Donald Trump.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Is a presidential effort to overturn an election with force a new norm?
Sep 03, 2024
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 aftermath of his election defeat in 2020, President Donald Trump attempted to overturn an American presidential election, challenging our institutions to respond. Most notably, on Jan. 6, 2021, the president rallied an assembled crowd to march to the Capitol to halt the certification of the election, the final constitutional step in the electoral process. Members of the crowd dutifully marched to the Capitol, where hundreds of them assaulted police, broke into the building and disrupted the certification proceedings.
By attempting to overturn an election by any extra-judicial means — pressuring his vice president to stop the certification and inciting a mob into violent action — the president attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. Yet he remains a popular, if controversial, political figure, polling about even with his major party opponent in the 2024 presidential race.
This raises an important question: Did the country decide whether attempting to overturn an election by force is acceptable in our democracy?
For a democracy to survive it must be able to confront serious challenges, including deciding whether efforts to subvert long-standing and foundational tenets of our democracy, like elections, are acceptable. The United States has upheld its constitutional democracy continuously, with periodic clarifications and improvements, for 235 years. That historic run has earned America the honor of being the world’s leading democracy.
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For a democracy to endure, however, two attributes are vital:
- Strong institutions capable of enforcing the rule of law: When a political figure takes actions that undermine the foundations of democracy, even when that figure occupies an elected office or enjoys popular support, constitutionally designated actors must react effectively in defense of the democracy.
- A political culture that prioritizes the continued existence of democracy over tribal interests: A critical mass of citizens must believe that accepting election outcomes is vital even when their political team loses. Even strongly devoted members of a political tribe, including candidates for office, must be willing to accept losing an election as long as they have a fair chance to compete and win future elections.
This analysis considers the following questions: Did the United States decide if it’s essentially permissible for a president to try to overturn an election with subterfuge and brute force? Are we able to judge from the country’s response to a president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election whether such actions are acceptable?
For the purposes of this analysis, we will define acceptable to mean that such behavior is normalized to the point that we might expect future politicians to try similar actions. Put another way, that such attempts represent a new norm. We will define unacceptable to mean that the president was held accountable for his actions such that future political figures would be deterred from attempting similar acts.
We would expect either strong institutional actors (Congress and/or the courts) or voters (through electoral behavior or public sentiment) to send a clear signal about whether presidential attempts to overturn an election by force are acceptable. This analysis will examine the reactions of Congress, the court, and the Voters to assess whether they resolved this question.
Congress
Congress is the institution with the most clearly defined prerogative and tools for responding to presidential malfeasance, such as an effort to overturn an election. Via the enumerated power of impeachment, the legislative body has the means and the responsibility to determine, through a constitutionally defined process, whether a president commits high crimes and misdemeanors damaging to the United States.
Congress took up this question shortly after the attack on the Capitol when the House of Representatives introduced one article of impeachment for “Incitement of Insurrection.” It passed with a majority of 232 votes (including 10 members of the president’s party) on Jan 13, 2021. The Senate took up the article on Jan. 25, conducting a trial in accordance with constitutional provisions. In the ensuing vote, a majority of 57 senators (including seven from the president’s party) voted in favor of the impeachment article.
Therefore, bipartisan majorities in both chambers went on the record with their votes that the president had incited insurrection. However, the super majority of 67 Senate votes needed to convict and remove a president from office was not reached. Several senators who voted against the impeachment measure cited technicalities connected to the timing of the trial, arguing that the president was no longer in office and therefore not subject to removal. With a formal finding of “not guilty” in the Senate vote and no effort made to impose a ban on the president from seeking future office, Congress concluded its official actions in the matter.
Assessment: Many lawmakers made comments critical of the president’s efforts to overturn the election, and bipartisan majorities determined that the acts amounted to insurrection, but Congress as an institution did not definitively resolve whether the president’s actions were acceptable. The president remained free to seek office again without any accountability.
Immediately subsequent to the impeachment vote, the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had described the president’s actions as inciting insurrection but voted “no” on the article of impeachment, citing the timing of the trial, said that though accountability for the president’s actions had not been achieved by Congress, itmight yet be achieved through the judicial system. We will examine that institutional line of defense next.
The courts
Did the courts come any closer to deciding whether it is acceptable for a president to attempt to overturn an election through subterfuge and force? Though Congress failed to answer the question, a special House committee held a series of public hearings on the matter in June and July 2022, issuing a report in December 2022 thatrecommended criminal charges be brought by the Justice Department for the president’s attempt to overturn the election.
The attorney general appointed a special council in November 2022 to investigate the facts surrounding the election subversion attempt. The special council brought evidence before a grand jury, which issued four felony charges against the former president on Aug. 1, 2023. That case has yet to come to trial, largely connected to the question of whether the president had immunity from such charges connected to his office, a question taken up by the Supreme Court in 2024, an issue we will return to shortly.
There was a parallel question of eligibility to run for president raised by Colorado voters connected to the president’s participation in an insurrection, which is disqualifying under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December 2023 that Trump was disqualified from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot due to his role in the insurrection. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which reversed the Colorado decision in March 2024 on the grounds that a state cannot enforce the 14th Amendment disqualification for insurrection against a candidate for federal office.
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether the former president had participated in insurrection, referencing instead the need for congressional action to enforce the relevant section of the 14th Amendment on a candidate for federal office. The court failed to note in the ruling that Congress had already considered the question of insurrection, voting by majorities in both houses to affirm that the president had indeed incited insurrection (the one article of impeachment considered in 2021).
The ruling left unanswered the question of the former president’s qualification for federal office under the insurrection ban, and therefore whether actions undertaken by a president to overturn an election by force were acceptable or not. It simply prevented a state from enforcing the 14th Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court also addressed the important question of presidential immunity for acts related to the indictments brought by the grand jury in the election subversion case. The court reviewed the determination made by aU.S. court of appeals in February 2024 that Trump did not have immunity as a former president for crimes committed while president related to his effort to overturn the election results. On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling and said that a president does enjoy some immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while president.
Theambiguous ruling declared absolute immunity for the exercise of "core constitutional powers," and some immunity for acts within “official responsibilities,” while determining no immunity for acts that are unofficial, leaving the definition of those categories for lower courts to decide at a future date. The Supreme Court thus failed to resolve whether the acts for which the former president was indicted were immune from prosecution. One result of that ruling was a significant delay in the pending trial. The judge in the criminal trial has scheduled an initial hearing to evaluate potential immunity for the charges in effect, but as of this writing the timeline of those decisions and the trial itself are undetermined.
With another presidential election rapidly approaching and the likelihood that Trump could simply end the trial process if he is reelected, the court system has still not resolved the key questions related to the former president’s culpability. More than three years after the events of Jan. 6 the courts have thus failed to impose any accountability on the former president for his actions to overturn the election, or apply any deterrent effect on future politicians who might contemplate similar acts.
Assessment: The judicial system has not determined whether a president’s effort to overturn an election with extrajudicial schemes and force were acceptable. Courts do not appear to be moving decisively toward resolving this question in the near term, leaving it up to the voters to be the final arbiter of whether in the United States such actions are deemed acceptable.
Voters
Have voters clarified whether a president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election by force is acceptable? Voters are a powerful force in democracy, and their behavior and choices can decisively answer certain questions about policy, norms and what is acceptable within the American political culture. Politicians are extremely sensitive to the prospects of their election or reelection to public office, which is among the most powerful motivators of their behavior. Political acts deemed disqualifying by voters would not likely be repeated by other politicians, thereby creating accountability and effective deterrence. Can we then say that since 2021 voters have sent a clear signal through their voting behavior and other measurable public sentiments about whether a president’s attempts to overturn an election are acceptable?
Like many other political questions, voting behavior relevant to this question remains ambiguous. The clearest potential signal would be if voters simply abandoned the former president in his next run for office, assuming public polling provided evidence that the abandonment was due to negative sentiments about his attempted election subversions. Instead, Trump won the next election in which he competed, the Republicans’ 2024 presidential primary. Despite significant vote shares for his competitors in many states, Trump won the series of primary contests handily.
What does this tell us about voter sentiment? Winning election contests, beginning with primaries, is the metric most compelling to political candidates. Voters reach their voting decisions for an array of reasons, but those who cast votes for Trump in the 2024 primaries and awarded their party’s presidential nomination to him, whether intentionally or not, signaled that his actions after the 2020 election were acceptable, or at the very least not disqualifying given the context of the time and the particular choices available.
Winning a major party nomination certainly would not dissuade future politicians from pursuing similar extrajudicial actions to overthrow elections that they lose at the ballot box. There might still be a strong potential deterrent effect if Trump were to lose in the general election, if that loss could be directly connected to negative voter sentiment related to the election subversion attempt in 2020-21. Absent a result from the 2024 general election (pending), however, we cannot fully assess what message a majority of voters are sending about attempted election subversion.
What about other measures of public sentiment? Trump is currently polling about even with his major party competitor in national and swing state polling, making it difficult to gauge how voter sentiment on his election subversion efforts is impacting a close general election race. Public sentiment also sends some conflicting signals on this question.
For instance, public polling in January 2021, shortly after the assault on the Capitol, indicated that 97 percent of Americans had heard about the Capitol riot, and among those respondents 68 percent said they did not want Trump to continue to be a major national political figure (including 40 percent of those in or leaning toward his party). At that time, 75 percent of respondents said that Trump bore “a lot” or “some” responsibility for the Capitol riot (including 52 percent of those in or leaning toward his party). A follow-uppoll taken one year later showed about a 10 percent drop in those numbers in both categories, indicating either a change in voter sentiment or simply a fading of intensity in those opinions over time.
In aDecember 2023 poll taken before the presidential nominations were decided and about 11 months before the general election, 46 percent of Americans said Trump’s actions related to his role in the Jan. 6 attack should disqualify him from office (with an additional 17 percent saying it should cast doubts, but not be disqualifying). While nearly half of the public believing a candidate’s actions are disqualifying might be a cause for any candidate to worry, winning the presidency does not require even 50 percent of public support. Two months ahead of the general election, Trump is polling about even with his major party competitor, suggesting that for a large block of voters his actions to overturn the 2020 election are not sufficiently disqualifying to deny him a second term.
Voters might reestablish accountability and effective deterrence against politicians who would try and overturn future elections if enough of them reject Trump in the general election in a manner that strongly suggests his actions to overturn the 2020 election were a primary reason. Swing state exit polling after the November 2024 general election may, or may not, provide enough clarity to answer that question.
Assessment: While a majority of voters have voiced negative sentiments about Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election through extrajudicial means and brute force, and though their responses to polling include significant warning signs for future political actors, those sentiments are not definitive. A large block of voters have also indicated with their actions at the ballot box that such behavior is not disqualifying. The pending 2024 general election may provide evidence on which block of voters is ascendant, but as of the writing voters have not decided unequivocally if a president attempting to overturn an election with force is acceptable. The institutions and people of the United States have left this question troublingly unresolved.
Conclusion
A democracy that cannot effectively respond to and reject an attempt by a president to overturn an election with subterfuge and brute force is in serious trouble. If our institutions and political culture cannot come to a decision on such a fundamental question, it suggests that political tribalism and the fear of or inability to meet brazenly unconstitutional acts with determined rejection are dangerously undermining our democracy.
George Washington warned us in his farewell address that yielding to the inevitable pressures of political tribalism would lead to government dysfunction, fueling disillusionment and cynicism, ultimately threatening the continued viability of the nation’s experiment in democracy. America is failing to heed that warning.
We are compelled to ask ourselves as citizens what we can do to check and reverse this headlong descent into tribal politics and hyper-partisanship, to elevate the interests of the country and the health of our democracy above the never-ending quest for tribal primacy, a malady not unique to any political party or identity. Fortunately, one of the most compelling solutions is apparent: Reform our election system to diminish the incentive for politicians to pander to voters who value tribal division over the basic function of our democracy.
Step one would be to move away from partisan primary elections that reward candidates who pander to a small minority of citizens. These base voters who participate most reliably in party primaries are often the most passionate, and their emotional attachment to tribal identity too often supersedes a willingness to question troubling behavior by members of their own tribe or countenance the cooperation and consensus-building needed to maintain a functioning democracy. The solution is nonpartisan primary elections that elevate candidates who show a willingness to cooperate with those outside the tribe when in the clear best interests of the country, coupled with general elections requiring that successful candidates win the support of a majority of voters, rather than simply a plurality. These reforms reward candidates who reach out beyond a narrow party base and incentivize the elevation of cooperation over tribalism.
Step two would be to diminish partisan gerrymandering of electoral districts, which decreases the number of competitive districts and therefore incentivizes more divisive behavior. The solution is mandating that nonpartisan commissions draw electoral maps, rather than having partisan elected officials draw maps designed to benefit their tribal interest, which tends to promote hyper-partisan behavior.
Given the challenges of passing federal laws to enact reforms that may disadvantage entrenched interests and politicians, these reforms will likely need to be enacted state by state. The good news is these reforms are already being adopted in a growing number of states. There are related reforms on the ballots in November 2024 in Nevada, South Dakota, Oregon, Montana, Colorado and Arizona, among others. Many voters are fed up with tribalism and dysfunction, and momentum for reform is building.
But we are in a race against time. The forces of tribal division are unrelenting, and our democracy is being pushed by hyper-partisanship to the brink. Incentivizing more responsible behavior by politicians will not change our political culture overnight nor will it end the tribal instincts intrinsic to human nature. But it will begin to reverse the downward spiral in our politics. Calling upon elected leaders to act more responsibly is unlikely to work if we do not change the incentives built into our election system. Though reform is a difficult slog, we have the solutions and means to change the course we are on.
We must find the will to do it.
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Maybe America needs a mom to call a time out
Sep 03, 2024
Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”
All of us have had that moment. An innocent comment over coffee with a friend, at a family dinner or while riding an elevator with a coworker. Everyone is at edge over politics. Nerves are rubbed raw. Civility has seemingly vanished.
When asked to rate the level of political division in the country on a scale of 0-100, where 0 is no division and 100 is the edge of a civil war, the mean response is 71, according to the Georgetown University Institute of Public Service. A similar share of Americans tell Pew they worry about political disagreements triggering more violence.
Little noticed on this side of the Atlantic is the reality of what can happen.
In recent years, two members of the British Parliament were killed while on the job. In the fall of 2021 Sir David Armess walked to his office in Leigh-on-Sea, a city of 22,000 in Essex, on the southeast coast of England. Waiting for him was a constituent, Ali Harbi Ali, upset with Middle Eastern politics. Minutes later, the member of Parliament was dead after getting stabbed more than 20 times.
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Five years earlier, another member of Parliament, Jo Cox, was murdered on her way to a similar meeting. This time by a right-wing fanatic.
“It used to be the tradition where you could walk up to a member of Parliament and have a chat. Now you would be mental to allow that to happen,” Sir Eric Pickles of the House of Lords told me. “You now want to know who the person is. You want to have an agreed exit plan with your staff, and all that kind of thing.”
After those two tragedies, several British foundations gathered to try to cool the nation’s political temperature. They knew they couldn’t change the zeitgeist overnight, but they could single out leaders as role models who were trying to depolarize rhetoric and drive consensus politics.
“We had quite modest expectations about the effect it would have on behavior change and part of it was just symbolic,” said Ali Goldsworthy, who helped spearhead the creation of the National Civility Award in Politics. “We wanted to honor people who have reached across divides in a very polarized time in the U.K.”
You would be hard-pressed to find a more divisive issue in the U.S. than abortion. But the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, colloquially known as Brexit, was even more polarizing.
In the end, however, one of the parliamentary leaders of the pro-Brexit movement, Steve Baker, was chosen for the award because of the message he delivered the night his side won.
“I very much regret the division this country has faced,” Baker said. “I very much regret the sorrow of my opponents will feel. I look forward to working with them tomorrow.”
When was the last time you heard an American politician assume that tone?
Now in its third year, the British Civility Award singles out political leaders across the political spectrum. Perhaps we should adopt the idea.
And we have stories of more people trying to change the current political zeitgeist in our “Lost in the Middle” podcast episode “Maybe America needs a mom to call a time-out.”
Maybe America needs a mom to call a big time-out by Scott Klug
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An Ohio State University votes in the 2022 election. A study by Tufts University says that by November, 8 million youth will have aged into the electorate since the 2022 midterms.
Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Surge in newly eligible young voters could swing the election
Sep 03, 2024
Ramakrishnan is a freelance journalist covering politics and culture.
Victoria Hinckley was set to graduate earlier this year from the University of South Florida but was instead expelled for participating in an encampment calling for her university to divest from businesses that have connections to Israel.
Hinckley, 22, calls it “an unfortunate situation” but fully believes in the power of student expression. If the past 10 months alone are any indication, America’s young voters are invested in current affairs and passionate in fighting for causes they believe in. This traditionally underestimated and undervalued segment of the electorate is slated to play a pivotal role in the 2024 election, with some saying that the youth vote can impact contested elections across the country.
But are Kamala Harris and Donald Trump aware of just how effective this electorate can be?
Purvi Patel says she hasn’t noticed any targeted strategy toward young voters by either candidate’s campaign.
Patel is director of civic and campus engagement at the Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan organization at the University of Chicago committed to increasing civic participation among young voters.
“Youth voter engagement has always been stereotypically denigrated, and they do turn out at lower rates. Part of this is because academic and other institutions fail to prepare younger people but youth participation is on the rise with recent election cycles,” Patel says.
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The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University released a report in October 2023 stating that 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote in 2024 with 8 million youth aging into the electorate since the 2022 midterms. The report further found that nearly half of the newly eligible voters are people of color.
“Young people in particular in certain swing states have become a decisive electorate that can change the outcome of the election,” Patel says.
Younger generations are now well informed through social media, and some realize they will bear the brunt of policies and elections.
“Younger people are living in changing times, and we are looking to drive meaningful change that benefits our future. Whether it’s America’s attitude toward Gaza or making housing more affordable — we want to see a change,” says Anthony Paul, 25, a graduate student at Georgia Tech.
Age is strongly related to partisanship, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study. Younger voters tend to lean more left while the Republican Party has more support among older age groups. The study also looks at the intersectionality of race, gender and age to understand partisanship. For example, Black voters in all age groups are overwhelmingly Democrat but younger Black voters tend to be more Republican than older ones.
A strong civics curriculum can encourage students to be more politically conscious and involved.
In May 2024, the American Bar Association released a report that found “31 states require a one-semester high school civics course and only six require a full-year course. The remaining states either require some civics instruction but not as a separate class or have no high school civics requirement.”
Sophie Rivell just began her senior year in a Pennsylvania high school. Rivell believes younger people are seeing how they fit into politics but a boost in civic education could go a long way. If people do not feel educated enough to make political decisions, it could discourage general participation.
“We have government classes but only for seniors, there is no space to really talk about politics. Teachers should be encouraged to talk to students. We haven’t talked about the Israel-Palestine conflict in school and it is one of the most pressing issues today,” Rivell says.
Rivell is the state lead for New Voters, an effort to mobilize high school students to be civically engaged. This year Rivell is helping 200 high schools run voter registration drives and register at least 85 percent of the graduating class or eligible voters.
“That number varies between high schools but in mine, it’s 250 students,” Rivell says.
New Voters was founded by Jahnavi Rao as a high school club in Pennsylvania, and it registered 85 percent of eligible students for the 2018 midterms. Today, New Voters has conducted registrations drives in 500 schools largely concentrated in Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Rao sought to address a disconnect she saw following the 2016 election results.
“There were people who cared about the country but didn’t vote. I’ve tried to address this issue since then,” she said.
According to Rao, there are logistical challenges that young or first-time voters face. Upon graduating high school, some move to other states to pursue higher education, and voting by mail can be challenging and limiting. Secondly, civics conversations are largely restricted to the federal government, which makes it hard to imagine that a single vote makes a difference.
“The youth have grown up in a tumultuous time and have seen a lot of stagnation on issues they care about,” Rao said. “They should be involved because the decisions being made impact them and their generation more than anyone else.”
Colleges can be spaces where young voters develop political affiliations and ideas.
Zackary Lokhard, 21, the president of Southern Illinois University’s Turning Point chapter, got interested in the group after he came across a College Republicans group.
“Voting is the most patriotic thing you can do. It preserves the system. America has never been more divided and youth participation shapes our surroundings from a local to a federal level,” Lockard said.
He pointed out that young voters have been through Trump and Biden administrations and therefore, the choice now is important.
“It’s like a before and after picture,” he said.
So what do they care about?
The think tank Next100 and GenForward, a survey created by University of Chicago professor Cathy Cohen, surveyed young adults (ages 18-40) to assess their civic engagement and political participation levels. Only a quarter of those surveyed think democracy is working well, with three in five young adults saying they’re concerned about the future of democracy.
The war in Gaza is not the most important issue to that cohort electorate. The study found that economic issues top the list of topics young people cite as important in this election. Immigration, reproductive rights and the climate are also featured on the list.
“It’s really important for us to have a say in what’s going on now because it dictates our future. We’re educated and introduced to new ideas so it’s only natural that we question what we have been taught our whole lives. Students have a place in every movement,” Hinckley says.
Students are feeling empowered to stand up for what they believe in — and they are acting in numbers that could tip the election.
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