News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Turning universities into right-wing propaganda factories
The authoritarian parallels
A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You will rarely find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's – and the world's – future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
[I]t is time for those who analyze polls to start acknowledging that there is now a third type of poll - the red wave, right-aligned narrative polling that only exist for a single purpose - to move the polling averages to the right. They are exploiting the “toss it in the averages and everything will work out philosophy” of these sites to once again launder these polls and game the averages - and thus our understanding of the election. Party leaders should expect them to keep these polls coming, and keep working the averages until it looks like Trump is winning in all polling averages. It is what they did in 2022, and it worked. They are doing it again this time, and once again it is working as the averages are moving and everyone is treating this movement like an organic rather than a deeply corrupt process.
Scroll down in Rosenberg's recent newsletter post to the sub-headline "Red Wave Pollsters Stepped Up Their Work This Week" – and read about a phenomenon that Big Journalism has almost completely missed. Republican-aligned "surveys" are being concocted and distributed by bad-faith propagandists, and credulous third parties – notably journalists and polling analysts – are falling for the skewed overall results in polling averages. What's crazy is that this isn't new! Remember the much-promised "red wave" in 2022, when Republicans were supposed to claim sweeping victories in Congressional races and take firm control of the House and Senate? It didn't happen; in fact, Democrats performed far above the norm for mid-term elections, as Rosenberg predicted that year, one of the very few analysts to get it right. For the next four weeks, if you're paying attention to the incessant drumbeat of polls our media prefers to commission and tout as "news," take what you read about national and state averages with a huge grain of salt.
The controversy in Shasta over the elections office is a more extreme version of an issue that experts have been sounding the alarm about for years. US elections officials are leaving at increasingly high rates after facing intense harassment and threats in the aftermath of the 2020 election and are being replaced by administrators with less experience and institutional knowledge.
The machinery of American voting is complex and relies on good faith labor by civil servants. This California county's top elected officials have abused their offices by throwing sand in the gears. They are in the vanguard of the Trump attack on democracy, and it's anyone's guess what will happen on Nov. 5 and beyond. This piece gives you a flavor of the political games the right wing is playing to reduce public faith in the system, even as they pretend that they're trying to fix something that is (not) broken.
As the world becomes more brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible, it gets very tempting to adopt an apocalyptic frame. (Cascio) wrote, “The danger of this urge is that it can easily become a trigger for surrender, a slipstream into despair. Such a danger isn’t limited to futurists; for so many around the world, things are too strange, too out of control, too immense, and too fragile to even begin to imagine appropriate responses.”
This newsletter post, by one of our most thoughtful political commentators (also a friend), is a departure – one you should spend some time savoring. It's half-meta. First, it summarizes and contextualizes a brilliant 2020 covid-crisis essay by futurist Jamais Cascio, on how to deal with a chaotic era. Then it applies the lessons to our current, hyper-fraught times, with particular attention to the Israel-versus-everyone Middle East debacle. There is some hope to be found in a survey of Israelis and Palestinians over the summer. "Brave leaders and new political movements could shift the direction of the conflict from mutual annihilation to mutual coexistence," Sifry concludes. "Intriguingly, it is the Israeli Palestinian Arab community, which lives in both camps, that shows the most interest in changing the course of events. Unfortunately, that is not the track we are on now."
One thing about a pivotal moment is you don’t know what will cause history to tip. And especially in an election poised to be so close — potentially decided by thousands, if not hundreds of voters — any little thing could make the difference. So, over the next 100 days, everything matters. Every. Single. Thing.
If Protect Democracy isn't on your list of organizations to follow (and support), it should be. Please read invocation to doing better. You can help. We all can help.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
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Simon Rosenberg
Dani Anguiano
Micah L. Sifry
Ian Bassin
