Polarization: Its Past Present And Future

A new index designed by researchers at Vanderbilt University shows a steady erosion of trust in American political institutions over the past 40 years, with it hitting its lowest point in 2017 after racial unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Launched by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, the… Read More

Employing straw man arguments in political debates signals we are not taking an opposing point of view and their reasons seriously because we misrepresented them from the outset.” Vanderbilt University’s Scott Aikin details the faults of a straw man argument in our most recent Democracy Minute. About the author:… Read More

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-04-05/marjorie-taylor-greenes-latest-target-for-outlandish-attacks-fellow-republicans… Read More

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-plazas/2022/02/02/how-americans-can-talk-what-about-what-happened-capitol-jan-6/9214118002/… Read More

Robert Talisse This video essay, Overdoing Democracy: When Politics Saturates Our Lives, Civic Capacity Suffers, is brought to you by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy. Written and edited by Robert Talisse. Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author… Read More

SUMMARY Unifying Theme: Hope for Consensus Across Party Lines: A Student Project While political partisans may not agree on much these days, 40 current and former elected officials interviewed by Vanderbilt students in the spring of 2021 agreed on leadership competencies to successfully work across the aisle, build coalitions and… Read More