The media news landscape is difficult to navigate and is fueled with false and manipulated information. Yet, to be a knowledgeable voter and engaged citizen requires credible trusted information and journalism. This program will explore journalism and news literacy and…
Over the last half-century, the Republican Party has exploited social divisions—and racism in particular—to win power, and then has ruled primarily on behalf of the ultra-wealthy. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has struggled to respond effectively and has even stooped to…
Economic inequality is a central theme in the Presidential campaign. Progressives have proposed that one way to reduce inequality is with a tax on the accumulated wealth of the richest Americans, yet an influential theory in economics, endorsed by the…
When you see something hateful online, do you respond? If so, why? And how, exactly? Everyone says “don’t feed the trolls.” But blocking, ignoring, and deleting can only go so far – and often serve to further polarize and isolate…
Ranked choice voting (RCV) is a simple solution with a big impact. It promotes majority support, contributes to more civil and issue-oriented campaigns, gives voters more choices, and produces a more reflective democracy. Amidst widespread frustration with politics among both…
The federal census – the headcount of the number of people living in the United States – is fundamental to American democracy. Census results are used to decide how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives,…
This program will probe our current impeachment crisis but go further. We will begin by exploring today’s urgent questions about impeachment such as its role in our constitutional scheme, its background, and history, whether impeachment is a legal or political…
Money talks and special interest groups have bought their way into Washington, wielding a tremendous amount of influence over lawmakers. The government of “we the people” is under attack and equality for all compromised. How did this happen and can…
The 45th president is a symptom of a political malady that afflicts America’s experiment in self-governance: the ability of malevolent forces to divide, manipulate and motivate millions of voters through the thousands of details collected from all of us through…
According to The New Yorker’s Jill LePore, Michael Lynch, the philosopher of truth, describes with a clear-eyed timely critique of our culture’s narcissistic obsession with ”we” know and “they” don’t. Lynch will discuss the digital culture and its tendency to…