Mar 15, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Goodbye cruel public opinion … When David Brooks announced earlier this year that he would stop writing his column for the New York Times, he explained things this way: When I came to The Times, I set out to promote a moderate conservative political philosophy...
Feb 20, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Last year Republicans in Congress tripled the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budget, and the agency is establishing a permanent presence (renting offices, etc.) in communities all over the country. The rapid doubling of the number of ICE agents has created...
Feb 15, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
The EPA recently overturned its so-called “endangerment finding,” the bedrock decision on which Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gas admissions rests. What will that mean in practice? Amidst the Trump Administration’s blitzkrieg assault on the rule of law, it...
Feb 10, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Internet-driven schadenfreude politics — what political scientists call negative partisanship — prevents Congress from addressing even the most pressing national problems. Facing the biggest national energy crisis since the 1970s, Congress has repeatedly...
Jan 20, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
We humans are biased toward understandings of reality that include some minimum level of optimism about the future. But if we ignore the bad news, we shut ourselves off from parts of the truth. Which brings me to the Supreme Court’s forthcoming Slaughter...
Jan 15, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Journalism, Bias & Censored News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
There is ever-more misinformation and fakery on the Internet every day. We learned recently that a large percentage of political accounts posting on X are fake, and the fake accounts tilt toward the ideological right.[1] Facebook has become littered with completely...