Philippa Kaur

When missiles fired from Ukraine destroyed a S-300/400 air defence battery on Russian territory over the weekend of June 1 and 2, it immediately gave rise to speculation that the missiles were from US high mobility artillery rocket systems, or Himars. It was assumed they were part of the large package of military aid which was finally approved by Washington at the end of April.

The reason for this assumption is that Ukrainian missile systems do not have a sufficient range to hit those particular targets, which were situated in a field in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, which borders Ukraine. The site was an estimated 80kms from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has itself come under heavy bombardment from inside Russia.

The question of whether Ukrainian military units would be allowed to use western-supplied weapons to attack targets inside Russia has come up many times since Putin launched his invasion in February 2022. For two years, the supply of arms from the US and Kyiv’s other western allies came with a strict prohibition against attacking targets outside Ukraine.

This was because of the very real fear in the west that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would use it as an excuse to escalate hostilities – particularly against the Nato member states with which Russia shares a border.

But the lengthy delay while some Republicans in Congress dragged their feet over approving Joe Biden’s US$60 billion (£50 billion) aid package had handed Russia a big advantage on the battlefield. Ukraine’s summer offensive in 2023 had failed to make any significant breakthroughs and during the winter that followed, Russia was able to leverage its numerical superiority and artillery advantage to push Ukraine back at several areas along the frontline.

Ukraine was trying to hold Russia in check to use various means of its own to attack some key targets on Russian territory. In particular, Ukraine has launched drone attacks on targets in Moscow and some of its oil refineries. Kyiv also had some success in targeting naval installations in Crimea.

But the Russian push towards Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, which had been under regular bombardment since the beginning of the war, highlighted another problem. Russia was able to use bases on its side of the border to launch airstrikes and glide bombs against Kharkiv and Ukrainian troops in the region.

The Russian military was also able to use the bases as a “sanctuary” in which units could regroup, rearm and return to the fight. Because they were largely out of range of Ukrainian missiles, they could do so in relative safety.

Read more:
Should Ukraine attack Russian territory with western weapons? The debate in Nato is shifting

Volodymyr Zelensky had pleaded with Washington to relax its restrictions. The UK, France and Germany all indicated they were willing to do so. And the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, made it clear that in his view Ukraine had the right to hit legitimate targets in Russia using any weapons at its disposal. But still Washington held out.

Washington reconsiders

But on May 14, on a trip to Kyiv, the US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, appeared to signal a more relaxed position than before. He said he thought it was up to the Ukrainians to decide how to use the long-range systems.

The state of the conflict in Ukraine as at June 5, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Institute for the Study of War

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, appeared to contradict Blinken when he said a week later that “our expectation is that they continue to use the weapons that we’ve provided on targets inside of Ukraine”. But his choice of words led some commentators to speculate that there might be exceptions.

As if to confirm this, Austin mentioned the problem of Russia’s air and glide bomb attacks from bases inside the Russian border. As the New York Times recounted, he told journalists: “The aerial dynamic’s a little bit different … And so – but again, don’t – don’t want to speculate on any – any one or – or any type of engagement here at the podium, so…” When pressed, according to the New York Times, Austin did not respond.

Difference of opinion: US defense secretary Lloyd Austin takes a more cautious position on the use of US weapons that secretary of state, Antony Blinken, seen here in the US senate in 2023.
EPA-EFE/Jim Lo Scalzo

By the end of May, the US position had shifted. On May 30, a US official briefed: “The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them”.

Michael Carpenter, senior director for Europe at the White House National Security Council, later clarified that this would only apply to certain weapons and not Atacms (army tactical missile systems). To the frustration of Ukrainian military planners, the restrictions on the use of weapons against Russian targets still have strict geographical and technical limits.

The importance of these issues cannot be overestimated. Ukraine is now employing a lethal combination of Atacms and increasingly advanced drones to systematically weaken Russian air defences in Crimea, target air bases used by Russian interceptors, and strike key targets. But a continuing US prohibition means it can’t use their Atacms against targets in Russia.

As anticipated by Washington, Russia has responded to the shift in the western stance with renewed threats and hints of the risks of nuclear weapons use. But these threats have are become so commonplace that they have clearly begun to lose their potency.

In any case, as the war progresses, the urgent need to support Ukraine, the conviction that Ukraine must not “lose” this conflict and the diminishing fear of escalation from Russia has resulted in loosening the restraints on the use of western military hardware and the provision of more capable systems. More

In the week leading up to the conviction delivered in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday, right-wing media was focused on Donald Trump’s innocence. Hosts of the popular podcast “Timcast IRL”, which scored an exclusive, 17-minute interview with the former president before his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, discussed the case at length.

Their guest, Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official, argued that he had watched Michael Cohen – Trump’s former lawyer and the star witness in the criminal case against the former president – “implode the prosecution’s case”. Host Tim Pool agreed that “there is nothing here” and the case was “absurdity and insanity”.

The three hosts and their guest had all been watching the case very closely; they were deep in the weeds. And they were utterly convinced it was bogus, that only a “rigged system” would find him guilty.

On Friday, a jury of his peers did find Trump guilty of falsifying business records in relation to hush money payments intended to cover up his affair with an adult movie star. Trump, who was found guilty on all 34 felony counts he faced, is now the first president in American history to be convicted of a crime.

Much about Trump is unprecedented. This moment is history-making.

Is America more polarised than ever?

Many Trump supporters, like Pool and his friends, had suspected this was coming. The guilty verdict only reinforced their certainty that the system is “rigged” against Trump – and by extension, anyone who supports him or even just some of his politics.

In the right-wing media universe, that is the only logical conclusion.

Trump has successfully deployed this narrative in the right-wing media for years now, and it has stuck. A day after the verdict was handed down, Trump told his supporters – as he has many times before – that “if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

Outside of the right-wing media universe, however, comments like these are reported on with a mixture of incredulity and concern. Mainstream media outlets note the significant threat this kind of rhetoric – and the increasing normalisation of political violence – pose to the institutions of American democracy.

This increasing divide in American politics, culture and society is often described as “polarisation” – a phenomenon where two entirely separate political universes (one right-wing, the other left) move further away from each other and into the extreme.

Protesters argue across the street from the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York on Tuesday, April 4.
Stefan Jeremiah/FR171756 AP

But the notion that polarisation is getting worse or is the biggest problem in American politics today suggests there was, at some point, a golden age of political consensus in the US. It also assumes there is a constant political centre to return to, and that there is a similar level of extremism on both sides of the political divide.

This plays into a very Trumpian framing that labels US President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party as extremists – or, in Trump’s words, “socialists” and “Marxists” – when they are nothing of the sort.

The reality of American politics today is not a simple question of polarisation that can somehow be reversed. Rather, the stark division between the two camps – and their world views – is, for the moment at least, irreconcilable.

That division has a long history. The wildly different reactions to the conviction are emblematic of a fundamental truth: the United States has never been one country. Trump did not create that situation, but he is better than anyone at exploiting it. He is already turning a criminal conviction into a winning campaign strategy.

Read more:
1968 was an inflection point for the US. Is another one coming in 2024?

The new normal

Those with enduring faith in the strength of American democracy and its institutions will argue this division is not necessarily all-encompassing. They might point to polling which has fairly consistently shown that Trump supporters outside of his core base might be shifted by a criminal conviction. This is particularly true of Democrats and independents who had previously voted for Trump – the voters Biden was able to attract back into the fold in the 2020 presidential election and needs to keep onside come November.

But even that is changing; recent polling suggests it might be prison time over a criminal conviction that would be decisive for voters – an unlikely outcome. Some polling suggests a criminal conviction may not matter at all.

Trump is masterful at shifting the political ground. And voters have known who he is for a long time. His ability to avoid accountability – to defy the “rigged” system – is something many of them admire.

Many things about his presidency and his political career are unprecedented. It is now entirely possible Trump will be the first former president to win an election despite – or perhaps even because of – multiple criminal convictions. More

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush-money payments trial has found the former U.S. president guilty of falsifying business records in relation to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The guilty verdict marks the first felony conviction of a U.S. president.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Trump called the trial a “rigged decision, right from Day 1.” He is likely to appeal the verdict.

Trump had been facing 34 felony charges stemming from his conduct in the lead up to the 2016 United States presidential election. He faces three other criminal indictments that won’t likely go to trial before this year’s election. And in 2023, he was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil suit involving writer E. Jean Carroll.

Despite these legal troubles, many Republicans still support Trump and would vote for him as president, even while acknowledging Trump’s faults outside public office or the courtroom. In fact, 56 per cent of Republicans say Trump’s sexual misconduct should not disqualify him from running for president.

Moral decoupling

Republicans typically offer various reasons for supporting Trump, even while recognizing his sexual harassment against women. For example, some suggest that Trump is the victim of a political witch-hunt, while others claim Trump’s current many trials and charges are a form of election interference.

Why do many Americans continue to support Trump? And are there psychological reasons that explain why people remain supportive of politicians despite their moral or political failings?

Former President Donald Trump walks to the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court as jurors are expected to begin deliberations in his criminal hush money trial in New York, Wednesday, May 29, 2024.
(Charly Triballeau/Pool Photo via AP)

“Moral decoupling” is a cognitive process that can explain why some people continue to support leaders in politics, media and sports even when they believe these leaders have significant moral failings outside of their professional vocation.

Moral decoupling is the ability to separate one’s judgments of a person’s moral character from their judgments of that person’s performance or abilities in the public office. In simpler terms, it’s the mental process of saying, “I don’t agree with their actions, but I still think they’re effective at their job.”

Moral decoupling can explain why, for example, Woody Allen continues to have a dedicated fan base and receives support within the film industry despite facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Many fans and professionals separate their appreciation for Allen’s movies, such as Annie Hall and Midnight in Paris, from his personal controversies, allowing them to continue supporting and valuing his work while disregarding the allegations against him.

There is some reason to believe that conservatives might be more likely to morally decouple than liberals. People who identify as conservatives tend to think in more narrow terms. That is, conservatives tend to focus on particular issues, seeing them as separate from others and see them as distinct from other issues, not being representative of “who” the person is. Separating issues fulfills a psychological need to see the world in a more clear-cut and orderly manner.

Meanwhile, liberals tend to look at “the big picture.” This explains why, for example, conservatives support politicians like Ron DeSantis who focuses on specific policies like education and handling of COVID-19, while more liberal people support politicians like Bernie Sanders who strive for systematic change.

Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media while returning to the courtroom at Manhattan Criminal Court, May 30, 2024, in New York.
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)

Implications for the future of democratic politics

Moral decoupling poses challenges for the future of democratic politics. As voters increasingly separate their judgments of personal morality from political leaders’ effectiveness in office, this trend could normalize misconduct from public officials.

Electors may increasingly justify such misconduct by elected officials, with supporters focusing on the candidate’s stance of a particular issue rather than their ethical values or fitness to hold office. It also reduces the need to hold public officials to be accountable not just to their office but to the public they serve. Indeed, effective political leaders are ethical leaders.

To address these challenges, it is crucial for members in all societies to foster a political culture that values both effectiveness as well as ethical conduct. Encouraging transparency, accountability, and open dialogue about the moral implications of political actions can help mitigate the negative effects of moral decoupling. Given the cognitive bases for moral decoupling, one way is to promote a more holistic approach to evaluating political leaders, thereby voters can ensure that ethical considerations remain an integral part of the democratic process.

While moral decoupling helps explain why voters continue to support leaders despite their moral failings, it also highlights the need for a balanced approach to political judgment. As democracies evolve, it is essential to recognize the complexities of moral decoupling and work towards a political environment where both ethical integrity and effective leadership are equally valued. More

Back in March 2022, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek said that his company wouldn’t take a public stand on Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Four days later, he yielded to rebukes from LGBTQ employees, reversed his decision and criticized the bill publicly.

In the ensuing political firestorm, the state of Florida revoked Disney’s 55-year-old favored tax and regulatory status, sparking legal disputes that lasted well into 2024. Chapek, deeply weakened, was fired not long after the controversy broke, in November 2022.

Disney may be a unique case, but it isn’t alone. Business leaders are increasingly at risk of political sparks igniting into firestorms that can devastate their companies. For example, in 2023, the conservative backlash to a Bud Light promotional campaign involving a transgender influencer led to a 30% drop in sales volume.

Leaders at BlackRock, Delta, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google and Target, among other corporate titans, have recently become embroiled in similar culture-war debates. These sorts of controversies undermine businesses’ strategy and sometimes their performance, often in lasting ways.

How did we get here?

As longtime business school professors of strategic management, we wanted to understand why so many firestorms are now engulfing business leaders. In our recent research we developed a new theory, rooted in the realities of American politics, that provides a three-part answer.

American politics are increasingly dysfunctional

First, many Americans think the American dream is out of reach. From middle-aged blue-collar workers to recent college graduates and beyond, people across American society are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the social contract. This has led to despair, jealousy and rising anger on both ends of the political spectrum.

Second, American political parties are using voters’ disillusionment and anger to drive fundraising. Each party emphasizes divisive, emotional wedge issues – such as immigration or welfare spending – typically related to the social contract. For candidates, adhering to the party platform and demonizing the other party can pay off, at least in the short term.

This leads to what scholars call “affective polarization,” which spawns animosity toward those with opposing views and expands the distance between opposing policy positions.

This animosity makes democratic government less effective, particularly at a time when the two major parties are near parity in terms of power, resources and electoral outcomes. Congress frequently faces political gridlock, forcing Republican and Democratic presidents alike to rely on executive orders and federal agencies to get work done. When control of the presidency shifts to the other party, executive-branch policies swing one from extreme to another, too.

We believe that ineffective government and policy uncertainty have undermined the American dream. As a result, disillusioned people are increasingly turning for help to the only other institution with enough resources to tackle these challenges: business.

That’s why companies have become the new nexus of political conflict and are facing pressure to take action on social justice, climate change and other issues that the government hasn’t effectively addressed. Corporate actions that touch these issues frequently place firms in between two deeply divided groups with opposing agendas – potentially sparking big controversies.

Business leadership is becoming more difficult

These issues are making executive positions far more challenging than they were just a decade ago. Culture-war firestorms can quickly overwhelm the conventional demands of setting and implementing business strategy. Executives must now spend substantial amounts of time, money and attention dealing with controversies.

This requires making new trade-offs. For example, research suggests that business investments that also benefit local stakeholders, such as communities and employees, get larger returns over the long term. But these investments are risky, because they lose value if the stakeholders refuse to cooperate later.

For example, Disney’s theme parks and hotels in Florida are difficult to relocate, despite adverse shifts in state government policy. Similarly, Chick-fil-A’s efforts to expand outside the American South were affected by opposition from politicians, as well as prospective employees and customers, over the founding family’s religious views and public comments about the definition of marriage.

If the polarization limits firm growth, investment returns and job creation, it would naturally shrink economic opportunities for shareholders and employees, possibly undermining confidence in the American dream even more. At the same time, firms face growing demands to spend on social responsibility. In an era of ubiquitous social media, failing to address stakeholder concerns can produce negative publicity, boycotts and other forms of backlash that can erupt into firestorms that hurt financial performance.

What’s more, despite growing pressures for corporate social responsibility, it’s not always profitable or even good for society. Because managers’ attention is finite, responding to these demands distracts them from investments with more promising financial returns.

Managing trade-offs in this combustible environment requires knowledge and skills that most executives don’t yet have.

What should business schools do?

Business schools have been slow to prepare future executives for this new environment. Although business students usually learn about social responsibility, they generally don’t learn about the causes of government gridlock and political polarization, or how to deal with divisive social issues.

What’s more, while some people criticize business schools for not teaching enough about emerging social issues that affect business, others assail universities for emphasizing these issues too much.

For now, business schools generally don’t prioritize teaching about social contracts. Perhaps more importantly, they rarely explain how firms can strengthen democracy and effective government.

Without business schools seeking to understand and address these issues and providing new training, we believe that future executives may not understand the opportunities they have to arrest the downward spiral.

Ultimately, it’s in everyone’s interest to expand business school curricula to include the dynamics of social contract formation, the process of affective polarization, the causes of government ineffectiveness and the reasons why business has become a nexus of sociopolitical conflict.

The failure to understand and address these issues can undermine the innovation and wealth that democracy and capitalism together have wrought. With proper knowledge and training, however, we believe that executives will be better prepared to help restore the social contract and confidence in the American dream – or perhaps to help to create a new one. More

The sharp increase in political polarization in America over the past 50 years has been driven in part by how different generations think about politics. But the rise of younger generations to political power may actually erase the deep social divisions associated with polarization.

That’s one of the strong possibilities for the future suggested by the diverse array of findings of our research, including editing a collection of the most current work on how different generations of Americans participate in public life.

For the past 30 years, baby boomers (those born roughly between 1946 and 1964) and members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1925 and 1945) have driven and defined American politics. For the most part, the Silent Generation and the older baby boomers were the core of the Republican Party. And the younger baby boomers, along with many Gen Xers (born roughly between 1965 and 1981), formed the core of the Democratic Party.

Millennials (born between 1982 and 1995) and Gen Z (born between 1996 and 2013) lean liberal and are more likely to vote for Democrats. They were key contributors to Democratic election wins in 2018, 2020 and 2022, especially in swing states.

Based on our research, presented in “Generational Politics in the United States: From the Silents to Gen Z and Beyond,” earlier generations – the Silents, baby boomers and Gen X – are more divided than millennials and Gen Z.

We expect that in the future, highly partisan members of the Silent, boomer and Gen X generations will exit and no longer be part of American political life. They will be replaced by millennials and Gen Zers, who are less likely to define themselves as strong Republicans or Democrats. The greater consensus among young people today may lessen polarization.

This 1989 photo of a bipartisan group of members of Congress alongside President George H.W. Bush shows a moment of collegiality despite party differences.
Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images

5 decades of change

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the vast majority of Americans had views roughly in the political center, with smaller numbers of people holding notably right-leaning or left-leaning opinions. In general, most voters had a broad consensus on policy issues. The Democratic and Republican parties were also broadly centrist. During this time period, Congress passed the Great Society programs, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and the Clean Air Act with bipartisan support.

But over the past 50 years, fewer and fewer Americans have identified themselves as aligned with the political center, and more have described themselves as on the right or the left, either as liberals or conservatives. This has led to increasing differences between the political parties, with the Democrats to the left of center and the Republicans to the right.

Members of Congress now are more likely to stick with their political party when voting, rather than vote for legislation supported by the other party. Recent passage of legislation linking Ukraine aid with support of Israel has been described as “rare cooperation among the parties.”

This polarization has many causes, including the influence of special-interest money on lawmakers and parties and society’s increased economic inequality. But our research highlights the role that new and changing generations can play in future shifts in American politics.

American politics is the constant cycle of generations entering and exiting the political arena. Even more, variation in the social and political environment during each generation’s formative years notably affects the attitudes and behaviors each generation will subsequently adopt.

For instance, the youngest generation is used to a 24-hour online news cycle and has experience with contested elections. Changes in generational attitudes today hold the potential to lessen current levels of polarization.

Generations have different characteristics

When we look across the past century, our research finds profound differences in the demographics and political views of the generations today.

The millennials and Gen Zers are the most racially and demographically diverse generations in American history. They are the least religious, which means they are less likely than their elders to say they follow a religion, to believe in a biblical god and to pray.

Additionally, these younger generations are more likely to self-identify as liberal. As we and others explain in several chapters of our book, surveys show they are more liberal on a whole range of issues regarding social matters, the economy, immigration and climate change.

Millennials and Gen Zers also vote more Democratic than older generations. And there is some evidence to support the expectation that their governing style as elected officials emphasizes issues that millennial citizens care about. For example, a set of millennial mayors who held office at various times from 2004 to 2024 focused on traditional economic concerns but also added social justice perspectives to the mix.

There may be a way to bridge some of the nation’s political gaps – wait.
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty Images Plus

A new political center?

The consensus on political views among members of these younger generations means there is potential for decreasing polarization. This would be a key change in American politics, we believe for the better.

But there are other possible scenarios. As the old saying goes, demographics are not always destiny. There are thorny methodological questions involved in pinning down the impact of generations.

Politically, young Republican men can be conservative on social issues. And consensus among young Democrats could be challenged by events such as campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Overall, however, generational shifts portend the possibility of decreasing polarization. More

By the end of winter 2024, the return of Donald Trump to the top of the GOP presidential ticket has revealed a surprising trend in the former president’s base of support: his increasing popularity among Black and Latino voters.

Several polls suggest as many as 23% of Black voters and 46% of Latino voters could cast their ballot for Trump.

If the polls are right, these numbers represent a far cry from the 6% of Black and 28% of Latino voters who supported Trump in 2016 and the 8% of Black voters and 32% of Latino voters who voted for Trump in 2020.

Given Trump’s long record of racist and xenophobic comments, the question, then, is why Trump’s support among voters of color has increased over the years.

A ‘racial realignment’?

Two explanations have emerged to explain Trump’s growth in support among voters of color.

The first is based on the faulty assumption, made by some Democratic strategists that the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. electorate would automatically benefit Democratic candidates. This assumption rests on the idea that voters of color are inherently progressive on issues such as education, social services, health care and criminal justice reform.

According to this line of thinking, Trump’s polling numbers are mostly the result of poor messaging by the Democrats – a failure to remind voters of color that their interests align with Joe Biden, not Trump.

The second explanation is that voters of color are inherently conservative, particularly working-class Black and Latino men, who identify more closely with the political right on issues such as immigration, law and order and cultural conservativism.

“Many of America’s nonwhite voters have long held much more conservative views than their voting patterns would suggest,” data analyst John Burton-Murdoch argued in the Financial Times in March 2024. “The migration we’re seeing today is not so much natural Democrats becoming disillusioned but natural Republicans realizing they’ve been voting for the wrong party.”

Though few other analysts go as far, Burton-Murdoch concluded that the numbers represent “racial realignment.”

GOP appeals to cultural identities

Both interpretations suffer from the same faulty assumption that politics can be reduced to a simple exercise in consumer branding and retailing.

Polls provide snapshots of how individual voters feel about certain topics at particular points in time. But they cannot capture the complex forces shaping the varied political realities of the estimated 35 million voters of color.

More important in understanding the apparent racial political shifts are the efforts that are made on the ground in local communities, especially by right-wing activists, that are appealing to a sense of isolation, economic precariousness and widespread mistrust in government.

To see those efforts in action, we attended the December 2023 America Fest, an annual conference in Phoenix sponsored by Turning Point USA, a right-wing organization focused on students and young adults. Perhaps half of the 13,000 attendees were under 35, including small but noticeable numbers of people of color.

At the conference, the emphasis of the group’s messaging was on connecting people who say they feel frustrated about contemporary political and cultural life.

These appeals, which attempted to exploit widespread cynicism among young voters, were used in every part of the group’s social media and outreach efforts. Paraphernalia for such efforts are part of the group’s online activism kits that provide posters and buttons emblazoned with slogans such as “Deep in the heart of freedom,” “Womanhood is not a costume,” “Take pride in my country” and “I 2nd that.”

Cultural refrains that mock gay and transgender people and support the Second Amendment right to bear arms are becoming more popular across the right.

During the 2020 campaign, then-U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Latino supporters in Phoenix.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

On another front, the Libre Initiative, a libertarian organization funded by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, launched in August 2023 a multistate advertising campaign aimed at Latino voters that blames Biden for the economic precariousness many of them are facing.

With six months remaining in the presidential campaign, these and other GOP efforts appealing to voters of color appear to be working, based on polling thus far.

But the outcome of the election is far from certain.

In our view, what the polls are revealing is the GOP’s attempt to win support of an increasingly diverse electorate – not through appeals to policy or ideological interests but through forging connections often rooted in identity, community and a sense of belonging.

While polls may provide some useful information and cues, it’s important for American voters to remain cautious about using them as the catchall explanations for these complex and ongoing racial dynamics. More

A record number of people will go to polls in 2024 to vote in national elections around the world. People who came of age during the last electoral cycle will have an opportunity to cast their votes for the first time.

In wealthier countries with rapidly ageing populations, such as the US and the UK, there will again be record inter-generational divisions in turnout and political preferences.

In recent elections, a high proportion of people aged 18–24 supported Democratic party candidates and the Labour party. In 2020, 61% voted for Joe Biden (compared to 37% for Donald Trump) in the US, and 62% voted Labour in the UK’s 2019 general election (compared to 19% for the Conservatives).

Ahead of the UK’s upcoming general election, which could take place as late as January 2025, successive polls have placed the Conservatives at 10% or less among young adults.

Nevertheless, the new generation of young voters in the US and the UK are disillusioned with mainstream electoral politics and are unenthusiastic about casting their votes. In fact, turnout rates for young adults (aged 18–30) are around a third lower than for adults of all ages in these countries.

Youth support for main parties in the US and UK national elections since 1990.
James Sloam, CC BY-NC-SA

Overwhelming youth support for the Democrats and Labour masks a desire for a more radical form of politics that addresses young people’s concerns. Opinion polls often do a poor job of explaining youth priorities across broad categories such as the economy and health. But my own research from 2022 with young Londoners reveals clusters of priorities relating to economic, social and environmental issues.

These issues include housing, personal wellbeing and safety, group rights for women or minorities and broader international questions around climate change and the ongoing situation in Gaza. Compared to older generations, young people are also much more comfortable with diversity in society and much less concerned about immigration.

In the US and the UK, these sentiments were effectively articulated by Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn in recent elections.

Sanders and Corbyn were both viewed by young adults as authentic and radical, believing in what they said, and offering meaningful solutions to pressing problems like low wages, unaffordable housing and university tuition fees. In the 2016 US primaries, Sanders received more votes from young Americans (aged 18–30) than Hilary Clinton and Trump (the two final candidates) put together.

Youth electoral participation (or non-participation) is also defined by a country’s electoral system. In countries with proportional representation, the trend towards socially liberal values and greater state intervention has led to increased support for alternative political parties.

For example, the Green party in Germany became the largest political party among those aged 18–24 at the 2021 federal election. It secured the votes of just under a quarter of young adults – almost as much as the two main parties (Social Democrats and Christian Democrats) combined.

A visualisation of the key political issues identified by young Londoners.
James Sloam, CC BY-NC-SA

Division among the young

Young people are, of course, not all the same. There are important divisions within this age group based on gender, socioeconomic status and ethnicity.

In the UK’s 2017 general election, 73% of young women voted Labour compared to only 52% of young men. And in the 2022 US mid-terms, 71% of young women voted Democrat compared to 53% of young men – a difference that was driven by the 2022 Supreme Court ruling allowing individual states to ban abortion.

In response to the ruling, young women registered to vote in record numbers, casting their ballots against Republican candidates who supported the decision.

These differences are reflected in participation in social movements. For example, the 2019 climate strikes were overwhelmingly comprised of young women and girls. The protests of one girl, Greta Thunberg, in a town square in Sweden, quickly spread into a global movement of millions of young people.

Socioeconomic status plays an equally important role. Young people from poorer backgrounds or with low levels of educational attainment are much less likely to turn out in elections than graduates or young people in full-time education.

In the UK, around two-thirds of university students turned out in recent general elections compared to around one-third of young people from the lowest social group. Young people from low-income backgrounds, if they do turn out, are often drawn to populist right-wing causes, such as the candidacies of Trump in the US and Marine Le Pen in France – especially in the case of young, white men.

The latter point illustrates how race or ethnicity shape youth participation. This is particularly true in the US where an estimated 87% of black youth voted for Biden in 2020 against just 10% for Trump.

However, the support of young minoritised ethnic voters for progressive candidates and parties has proved frustrating, as existential economic and security issues have not been addressed. It was the Black Lives Matter movement and citizen-generated evidence, rather than politicians and parties, that shone a spotlight on police brutality and discrimination in the US and many other countries.

Read more:
Black Lives Matter protests are shaping how people understand racial inequality

The forthcoming elections in the UK, the US and many other rich democracies are likely to be defined by inter-generational cleavages. However, it is far from certain if young people will be drawn to the polls.

There is a dilemma for progressive candidates and parties regarding how far they are willing to go to appeal to younger generations given the inter-generational divisions that exist. Yet this is fast becoming a risk worth taking.

Successive generations of young people are entering the electorate with socially liberal views and positive attitudes towards state intervention to address economic, social and environmental challenges: from poor mental health, to the cost of housing, to concerns about pollution and climate change. More

The first week of testimony is winding down in former President Donald Trump’s trial in New York City on charges that he falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film star, in an effort to avoid reporting the payments as campaign-related spending.

In a discussion that quickly shifted to topics well outside the courtroom itself, The Conversation U.S. spoke with Tim Bakken, a former New York prosecutor and now a legal scholar teaching at West Point, and Karrin Vasby Anderson, a scholar of political communication at Colorado State University, about the week’s events.

Their focus this week was on how Trump and other politicians interact with the U.S. media, and how their interactions relate to democracy itself.

Trump’s approach to the media

Anderson: Testimony in the case so far has indicated that Donald Trump thinks that an appropriate way to control or shape the news cycle is to pay off media professionals. That’s a departure from what politicians typically do, which is to hire media strategists who help them shape their message and their political platform in ways that garner favorable media coverage.

Trump’s approach is much more transactional. When he was president, the Columbia Journalism Review noted that he took the “unprecedented move” of revoking press passes from members of the White House press corps who covered him unfavorably.

And some journalists appear to be taking cues from Trump.

Earlier this week, in a Truth Social post, Trump attributed the following quotation to Fox News host Jesse Watters: “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump jury.” The New York Times found that Trump embellished the quote: The words “in order to get on the Trump Jury” were not in Watters’ initial report.

It’s not surprising that Trump embellished or changed a quotation. What’s really staggering is that after the fact, Watters posted on X the exact statement Trump had made, which was not what Watters had said on air. Essentially, Watters was allowing Trump to be his editor in his coverage and characterization of this case.

Regardless of how the court decides, I think the average American should be concerned that Trump approaches the free press from a transactional perspective. Trump looks to who he can pay off or threaten or intimidate so they will tell the story he wants.

Trump’s reaction to criticism

Bakken: Trump is saying that the media engages in the same kinds of distortions that he engages in when he says, more loudly, things that verge on falsehoods or are falsehoods.

Uri Berliner, a former editor for NPR, essentially raised the same allegations in a recent online column, concluding that NPR’s coverage is swayed by the personal identities and characteristics of its journalists. In essence, according to Berliner, NPR may distort reality, though in a more subtle way than Trump, by virtue of the journalists it hires, the sources who are quoted by the journalists and the stories the editors decide to cover, to the disadvantage of Trump.

Trump seems to be responding to what he perceives as the media, including NPR and The Washington Post, calling him names, such as “authoritarian,” including by characterizing his speech as action.

As a candidate and as a criminal defendant, Trump can point to verifiable facts that signal possible unfairness. For instance, he’s being tried by a jury selected in a jurisdiction where Democrats outnumber Republicans 9 to 1. And the piece about NPR said 87 NPR editors are registered members of the Democratic party and none are Republicans – though at least some are not members of either party.

Maybe he’s saying it’s as great a threat to democracy to be singled out by the democratic institutions – which are supposed to be seeing both sides – because he’s a dissenter or a communicator who is different from other people.

Anderson: The concern that I’m raising with the Jesse Watters case is not that it was friendly towards Trump. It’s that Watters changed his reporting to fit Trump’s narrative after Trump misquoted him.

Trump tweeted something that was a lie: He said “Jesse Watters said ‘XYZ’” and Watters didn’t – Trump added to Watters’ words. That was going to be a problem for Trump because he would have been caught misquoting Watters. So Watters fixed that by going back and matching Trump’s words.

The bottom line is that Trump has shown a willingness in the course of a campaign and presidency to influence the press in ways that other politicians have not.

Trying to get the media to give you a friendly news framing is politics as usual. Paying people with secret deals, or by intimidating or punishing journalists, that’s an entirely different thing. Regardless of whether Trump is convicted of a crime this time around, I do believe that this case is illustrative of his relationship with the media and how he thinks about it differently than other people who’ve been president of the United States.

Donald Trump speaks to the media briefly upon his arrival at court on April 25, 2024.
Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times via AP, Pool

Fighting back

Bakken: In 1996 I ran as a Democratic candidate for Congress in my home district in Wisconsin. I lost in the primary.

I have some experience in trying to convince somebody in the media to write a favorable article by giving a reporter information.

I don’t see how treating a friendly reporter more favorably than you treat an unfriendly reporter is any different. You’re advantaging a journalist who shares your point of view and disadvantaging a journalist who does not share your point of view.

Through deciding what stories to publish, NPR might be doing the same thing that Fox News is doing, except that we didn’t know it until Berliner spoke up. Both internally and publicly, NPR has rejected Berliner’s criticism, but its listeners may have had concerns. Since 2020, the number of weekly NPR listeners plunged from 60 million to 42 million in March 2024, according to The New York Times.

It seems to me that Trump is fighting back against the press in a way that’s more aggressive than other people’s, but he feels that is his only approach. A lot of people align with him because they feel that disconnection from what they believe are institutions that are no longer fair.

A difference from the past

Anderson: My job as I see it, as somebody who is trained in political communication, is not to stump for either side. But I do simply say: When a presidential candidate misquotes a journalist, and then later the journalist posts a second quote that confirms the candidate’s misinformation, that is dangerous, and we should be worried about it. The misquote, by the way, seems to have been influential in one of the jurors stepping down because she was getting bad feedback.

That’s not normal. It isn’t how most politicians, Republican or Democratic, have dealt with the national media prior to Trump. More