Our brains have powerful biases that help us maintain a coherent world view. However, sometimes those biases prevent us from integrating new evidence well. Today, the release of former FBI director James Comey provides an example. Most readers on the left and the right see it as powerful evidence that President Trump attempted to obstruct [...]
Entries Tagged as 'President'
Politics & Polls: Falling Toward Pavement
May 18th, 2017, 1:31pm by Sam Wang
Washington has been hit with a trifecta of catastrophic events in the past week: Trump fires FBI director Comey for investigating Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, then Trump tells secrets to the Russians in the Oval Office, then it emerges that Comey writes memos about all his conversations, including Trump trying to obstruct the [...]
Tags: Politics · President · U.S. Institutions
Authoritarian Government Watch – Update
May 11th, 2017, 7:53pm by Sam Wang
Trump to NBC: "When I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story." — Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) May 11, 2017 On January 28th, I came up with 10 events that, if they happened, would constitute evidence of an authoritarian government. Now [...]
Tags: President
What Makes A Presidential Transition Successful?
May 6th, 2017, 8:33am by Sam Wang
On Politics & Polls, Julian and I talk with Chris Lu, director of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team in 2008, and Deputy Secretary of Labor. We talk about both subjects. We got into depth about what makes a transition succeed (Obama) or flounder (Clinton, Trump). Listen to Politics & Polls #42.
Tags: President
General Petraeus: “This is fine”?
April 13th, 2017, 4:15pm by Sam Wang
For Politics & Polls #39, we were joined by Woodrow Wilson alumnus General David Petraeus. Is the “deep state” a sinister conspiracy, or an institution that prevents insane policies? As Trump brings Syria, North Korea, and Afghanistan to a boil, is it good or bad to have ex-military serve at the highest levels of government? [...]
Tags: President · U.S. Institutions
Politics & Polls #38: Sarah Kendzior on Trump/Russia
April 9th, 2017, 1:52pm by Sam Wang
Sarah Kendzior was among the first writers to point out Trump’s likely rise, and to trace it to white anger in “flyover country,” a term she gets to use because she lives in Missouri. She writes for the Toronto Globe & Mail, and has a lot to say about the Trump/Russia connection. It was a [...]
Tags: President
Post-November Optimism Crashes After Failure of ACA Repeal
April 4th, 2017, 5:03pm by Sam Wang
Light posting these last few months. Spring term is busy. But hey, there’s always the podcast, which is not bad. Today I post this somewhat underappreciated survey quantity, the right-track/wrong-track question. It asks whether respondents think the United States is on the right track or wrong track. This survey has been in consistently negative territory for [...]
Tags: President · U.S. Institutions
Politics & Polls #37: a chat with Robert Costa
March 30th, 2017, 10:06am by Sam Wang
Julian Zelizer and I interviewed Robert Costa, political reporter for the Washington Post. Costa’s been covering national politics for many years. Last Friday, he was the first person that Donald Trump called to talk about the cancellation of the vote on Affordable Care Act repeal. We got into what it was like to get the [...]
Politics & Polls #35: Intellectual Foundations of the Trumpist Movement
March 19th, 2017, 3:32pm by Sam Wang
In the summer of 2015, Julius Krein started an online blog called the Journal of American Greatness. A bit tongue-in-cheek at the time, it has morphed into something more serious: a journal called American Affairs. Julian Zelizer and I find out from Krein what he thinks are the defensible intellectual pillars of Trumpism. Amazingly, one [...]
Tags: President · U.S. Institutions
Politics & Polls #34: How (Ab)normal is the Trump presidency?
March 9th, 2017, 10:08am by Sam Wang
We’re almost halfway through Trump’s first 100 days in office. There’s been a lot of heat, noise – and executive orders. But not legislation. Is this abnormal? Or is it par for the course? Julian Zelizer and I drill into these questions, inspired by a recent article in The Upshot. Listen! Link: http://bit.ly/PoliticsAndPolls34
Tags: President · U.S. Institutions
