Why Does the 2020 Presidential Campaign Feel So Loud and Angry?

In an Age of ‘Post-Rhetorical’ Politics, Candidates Now Compete, Rather Than Cooperate, With the Media

Presidential candidates have long found ways to take their messages directly to the voters, by avoiding the filter of press coverage. But today, candidates have gone steps further, turning themselves into direct competitors with the media that cover them and creating an increasingly bitter conflict between the press and politicians.

The competition also explains why voters are suddenly seeing so many new approaches to political communications—approaches that can make politics feel both more democratic, and more chaotic. We are watching the end of one kind of political campaigning and …

Running for President Takes a Stiff—and Clean-Shaven—Upper Lip

As Thomas Dewey Learned in His Race Against Harry Truman, You Can Lose by a Whisker

In 1948, Emilie Spencer Deer, a solidly Republican woman from Ohio, announced to her family that she would vote for President Truman instead of the Republican candidate Thomas Dewey because …

Social Media Has Made Politics Impossible to Predict

We Don't Understand Why Some Campaigns Go Viral While Others Flop

U.S. citizens spend growing proportions of their lives on social media, and while they are there, they are continually invited to take part in politics. Liking, sharing, or tweeting a …