Philippa Kaur

Declarations of the end of an era are made only in exceptional circumstances. Henry Kissinger’s death is one of them.

Kissinger was born into a Jewish family in Germany, and fled to the US in 1938 after the Nazis seized power. He rose to one of the highest offices in the US government, and became the first person to serve as both secretary of state and national security adviser.

The 1973 Nobel Peace prize, which Kissinger shared with his North Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho, recognised his contribution to the negotiations that ended the Vietnam war.

Kissinger advised a dozen US presidents, from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden. For advocates of realpolitik – a quintessentially pragmatic, utilitarian approach to foreign affairs – Kissinger was both author and master.

Across many years, his viewpoint remained largely unchanged: national security is the centrepiece of sovereignty, as both a means, and end in itself. From this perspective, Kissinger’s transformative diplomatic involvement in seminal events in the 20th century, and iconic insights in the 21st have shaped swathes of western geopolitics.

His fierce ambition was a key part of his vision, namely to rework the bipolar structure of the cold war, bent on establishing both US power, and arguably his own role in it.

Kissinger had no qualms backing the military dictatorship behind Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in the 1970s. He supported the CIA in overthrowing president Salvador Allende of Chile in 1970, advocated sustained bombing in areas of North Vietnam, and encouraged the wiretapping of journalists critical of his Vietnam policy. He prioritised security over human rights, and commercial control over self-determination.

None of this was surprising. Kissinger’s entire approach to foreign policy was unsentimental at best, and brutish at worst. Peace, and the power to conclude a peace, could only be hewn coarsely from the unforgiving fibre of state relations, he believed.

To his critics, Kissinger’s actions in Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia and beyond significantly challenged his legacy of negotiation and diplomacy, and – in the eyes of some – were tantamount to war crimes.

Peacemaker or polariser?

Kissinger’s legacy will remain a mixed one. It incorporated truly ground-breaking efforts in opening up talks between the US with China and the Soviet Union, alongside visibly polarising outcomes for US foreign policy in its relations with South America and south-east Asia.

As secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger’s geopolitical achievements established him as an elder statesman of the Republican Party. This rested on a trinity of endeavours: pulling the US out of the Vietnam War, establishing a host of new diplomatic connections between the US and China, and cultivating the first stages of détente (improved relations) with the Soviet Union.

Vietnam remains the most contentious of these areas, with accusations that Kissinger blithely applied bombing and destruction in Cambodia to extract the US from the Vietnam war. The peace was fragile and hostilities continued for years afterwards without the Americans.

Read more:
Henry Kissinger’s bombing campaign likely killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians − and set path for the ravages of the Khmer Rouge

Nixon and China

Kissinger’s reputation is on sturdier grounds with the grand strategy to permanently open relations between the US and both China and the Soviet Union. This facilitated a reduction in east-west tensions that materially benefited the US. It also saw Kissinger effectively playing the two communist powers against each other.

Concentrated through the lens of the cold war, the majority of Kissinger’s interactions were based on an approach that balanced caution with aggression, and pragmatism with the acquisition of power.

This was sometimes directly, but often through the use of proxy wars, including Vietnam and the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states, which descended into a power play with the Soviets, as did the 1971 India-Pakistan war. The image of Kissinger entirely comfortable with the high-stakes poker game between superpowers is an arresting one.

Post-cold war geopolitics did not diminish Kissinger’s overall approach. He counselled generations of US decision-makers to remember the virtues of allying with smaller states as well as superpowers for reasons of power and commerce, and a commitment to retain lethal force in the US foreign policy toolbox.

For scholars of international relations, Kissinger’s numerous books, from the iconic Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, to Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy are an inventory of hard-headed views on the unrelenting demands of classic and modern statecraft and the challenges of crafting not just foreign policy, but grand strategy.

They are also a masterclass in European history, with a powerful message regarding sovereignty and the supreme role of the national interests in foreign policy, regionally and globally.

President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger in the grounds of the White House, Washington DC, August 16 1975.
Everett Collection/Alamy

Kissinger’s relentless dedication to realpolitik as the fiercest approach to managing international affairs is at odds with the many elements of his personality. Nowhere is this more evident than in his writing, with “characteristics ranging from brilliance and wit to sensitivity, melancholy, abrasiveness and savagery”.

Kissinger’s final impact is on the hardware and software of global diplomacy: guns versus ideas. A pragmatic, even cynical approach tackling the imbalance of power between states impelled Kissinger to promote seemingly paradoxical approaches: ground-breaking diplomatic approaches to ensure peace, easily reconciled with a ruthless reliance on military power.

This, in turn, gave his counterparts little option other than to cooperate, which they generally did, from the North Vietnamese to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to China’s prime minister Zhou Enlai.

In his later years, seemingly immune to his foreign policy bungles, Kissinger’s celebrity diplomat status remained undimmed, somehow confirming the sense that international relations routinely transcends domestic politics, and in doing so, remains both a high stakes game, and a distinctive area of practice. His passion for foreign affairs never dimmed, commenting on the October 7 Hamas attack just a few weeks before his death.

For every one of Kissinger’s brilliant moves, there was a bungling countermove. Students of foreign policy need therefore to consider both Kissinger’s scholarship and his practice.

They should look through examples of his work in which one side seizes upon anything resembling a diplomatic opportunity, and commandeers its potential to produce a win, and then calls that a victory. Such victories however could be fleeting and left behind tensions that frequently came home to roost. More

Henry Kissinger was the ultimate champion of the United States’ foreign policy battles.

The former US secretary of state died on November 29 2023 after living for a century.

The magnitude of his influence on the geopolitics of the free world cannot be overstated.

From world war two, when he was an enlisted soldier in the US Army, to the end of the cold war, and even into the 21st century, he had a significant, sustained impact on global affairs.

Read more:
Kissinger at 100: his legacy might be mixed but his importance has been enormous

From Germany to the US and back again

Born in Germany in 1923, he came to the United States at age 15 as a refugee. He learned English as a teenager and his heavy German accent stayed with him until his death.

He attended George Washington High School in New York City before being drafted into the army and serving in his native Germany. Working in the intelligence corps, he identified Gestapo officers and worked to rid the country of Nazis. He won a Bronze Star.

Kissinger returned to the US and studied at Harvard before joining the university’s faculty. He advised moderate Republican New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller – a presidential aspirant – and became a world authority on nuclear weapons strategy.

When Rockefeller’s chief rival Richard Nixon prevailed in the 1968 primaries, Kissinger quickly switched to Nixon’s team.

A powerful role in the White House

In the Nixon White House, he became national security advisor and later simultaneously held the office of secretary of state. No one has held both roles at the same time since.

For Nixon, Kissinger’s diplomacy arranged the end of the Vietnam war and the pivot to China: two related and crucial events in the resolution of the cold war.

He won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for his Vietnam diplomacy, but was also condemned by the left as a war criminal for perceived US excesses during the conflict, including the bombing campaign in Cambodia, which likely killed hundreds of thousands of people.

That criticism survives him.

The pivot to China not only rearranged the global chessboard, but it also almost immediately changed the global conversation from the US defeat in Vietnam to a reinvigorated anti-Soviet alliance.

US President Richard Nixon congratulates Henry Kissinger on being awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.
Jim Palmer/AP

After Nixon was compelled to resign by the Watergate scandal, Kissinger served as secretary of state under Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford.

During that brief, two-year administration, Kissinger’s stature and experience overshadowed the beleaguered Ford. Ford gladly handed over US foreign policy to Kissinger so he could focus on politics and running for election to the office for which the people had never selected him.

During the turbulent 1970s, Kissinger also achieved a kind of cult status.

Not classically attractive, his comfort with global power gave him a charisma that was noticed by Hollywood actresses and other celebrities. His romantic life was the topic of many gossip columns. He’s even quoted as saying “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”.

His legacy in US foreign policy continued to grow after the Ford administration. He advised corporations, politicians and many other global leaders, often behind closed doors but also in public, testifying before congress well into his 90s.

Read more:
The Nobel Peace Prize offers no guarantee its winners actually create peace, or make it last

Criticism and condemnation

Criticism of Kissinger was and is harsh. Rolling Stone magazine’s obituary of Kissinger is headlined “War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies”.

His association with US foreign policy during the divisive Vietnam years is a near-obsession for some critics, who cannot forgive his role in what they see as a corrupt Nixon administration carrying out terrible acts of war against the innocent people of Vietnam.

Kissinger’s critics see him as the ultimate personification of US realpolitik – willing to do anything for personal power or to advance his country’s goals on the world stage.

Former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, leaves behind a controversial legacy.
Shutterstock

But in my opinion, this interpretation is wrong.

Niall Ferguson’s 2011 biography, Kissinger, tells a very different story. In more than 1,000 pages, Ferguson details the impact that world war two had on the young Kissinger.

First fleeing from, then returning to fight against, an immoral regime showed the future US secretary of state that global power must be well-managed and ultimately used to advance the causes of democracy and individual freedom.

Whether he was advising Nixon on Vietnam war policy to set up plausible peace negotiations, or arranging the details of the opening to China to put the Soviet Union in checkmate, Kissinger’s eye was always on preserving and advancing the liberal humanitarian values of the West – and against the forces of totalitarianism and hatred.

The way he saw it, the only way to do this was to work for the primacy of the United States and its allies.

No one did more to advance this goal than Henry Kissinger. For that he will be both lionised and condemned.

Read more:
A tortured and deadly legacy: Kissinger and realpolitik in US foreign policy More

Hillary Clinton famously did not win the 2016 election and become the first female U.S. president. Yet Clinton’s presidential campaign still resonated with many women who have said it made them more likely to get involved in politics.

When women run for office, it can inspire other women and girls to become more politically active. Clinton, Vice President Kamala Harris, presidential candidate Nikki Haley and other high-profile female politicians have motivated women to follow in their footsteps and consider running for office.

It turns out that same sort of inspiration can happen when a female politician is not actually real, but instead is a character on a fictional TV show.

I am a scholar of political communication and media psychology. My research shows that when women watch a female lead character on a fictional political TV show, it can increase their interest in participating in politics and their belief that they can make a difference in the electoral process and results.

American women’s political engagement

Women run for office in the U.S. and serve in political positions less often than men. Only 28% of Congress and 24% of state governors are women. The U.S. ranks 86th among 152 countries when it comes to the number of women who serve in political office – and how long they hold those positions, according to the World Economic Forum.

With the exception of voting, women are less likely than men to participate in political activities. Compared with men, women often have less confidence in their abilities to understand politics.

The role model effect documents that women and girls become more encouraged to participate in politics when they see other women run for political office.

And my research team found that this role model effect can translate into fictional TV content as well.

When women see strong female lead characters in political TV shows, it can inspire them to vote or find other ways to get involved in politics.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Connecting with TV characters

The fictional characters Alicia Florrick, Olivia Pope and Elizabeth McCord are examples of women whose political power exists only on TV.

Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, worked as a Chicago-based lawyer before she eventually ran for Illinois state attorney general in CBS’s drama “The Good Wife,” which aired from 2009 until 2016.

Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, worked as a high-profile political fixer and consultant on ABC’s political thriller series “Scandal,” which started in 2012 and ended in 2018.

Elizabeth McCord, played by Téa Leoni, regularly overcame political obstacles as U.S. secretary of state – and later as the first female U.S. president – on the CBS drama “Madam Secretary,” which ran from 2014 to 2019.

Each of these shows includes a woman lead character in a nonstereotypical role – a leader successfully tackling political problems.

When people watch these TV shows, they can feel a strong bond with their characters, a connection researchers call parasocial relationships. Viewers even use their attachments to TV characters to satisfy their need to feel connected with other people.

Sometimes, connecting with fictional characters – and seeing strong, female characters – can even spark viewers to become more involved in politics.

Inspiring political engagement

Two studies that I co-authored show how viewers’ connections with TV show characters influence their political engagement.

Political engagement can mean a range of things, including how closely someone follows news about the government and elections. Political engagement can also be someone feeling that they can make a difference in an election and that they have a say in what the government does. Political engagement can also include circulating a petition, attending a political rally or speech and, of course, voting.

We found that viewers formed strong bonds with these fictional women, and these connections persisted even after the credits rolled at the end of each episode.

In our first study on this topic in 2019, we surveyed people who watched one or more of three shows: “Madam Secretary,” “The Good Wife” and “Scandal.” When compared with individuals who watched less often, viewers who regularly watched one of these shows, who were mostly women, had particularly strong connections with that show’s lead female character. These bonds with the fictional character translated into viewers saying they had a growing interest in politics, feelings of making a difference in the election process and greater intentions to participate in politics.

In our second study from 2020, we collected data from people who were much less familiar with these shows. Participants in an experiment viewed a leading female character in “Madam Secretary,” or a leading male character in another show, with either a political- or family-focused plotline.

When compared with the other experimental conditions, participants who self-identified as more feminine, primarily women, experienced greater connections with the female lead character when she was shown in a plotline that addressed a political problem. That then increased their interest in politics, feelings of political self-efficacy and plans for political participation.

Importantly, our study concluded that merely seeing women as lead characters on TV is not enough to prompt women and girls to become more involved in politics. Instead, these women characters must be shown as a political leader.

A woman walks past a billboard promoting CBS’s ‘The Good Wife’ in 2009, shortly after the show’s release.
George Rose/Getty Images

More than just entertainment

Fictional television can influence viewers’ political attitudes and policy preferences. Political TV shows, in particular, can be both fun and thought-provoking for viewers.

Given the limited amount of nonstereotypical TV content featuring women, political TV shows with female lead characters may be particularly influential. Shows like “Madam Secretary,” “Scandal,” “The Good Wife” and, more recently, Netflix’s political drama “The Diplomat” all feature strong female characters with high-profile careers in politics, entertaining millions of viewers.

But these shows do more than just entertain their audiences. The power of a woman character leading a political TV show extends beyond viewership to real-world political engagement. More

Misinformation is debated everywhere and has justifiably sparked concerns. It can polarise the public, reduce health-protective behaviours such as mask wearing and vaccination, and erode trust in science. Much of misinformation is spread not by accident but as part of organised political campaigns, in which case we refer to it as disinformation.

But there is a more fundamental, subversive damage arising from misinformation and disinformation that is discussed less often.

It undermines democracy itself. In a recent paper published in Current Opinion in Psychology, we highlight two important aspects of democracy that disinformation works to erode.

The integrity of elections

The first of the two aspects is confidence in how power is distributed – the integrity of elections in particular.

In the United States, recent polls have shown nearly 70% of Republicans question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. This is a direct result of disinformation from Donald Trump, the loser of that election.

Democracy depends on the people knowing that power will be transferred peacefully if an incumbent loses an election. The “big lie” that the 2020 US election was stolen undermines that confidence.

On January 6 2021, Trump supporters at the United States Capitol tried to stop a Congress session that was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Johnny Silvercloud/Shutterstock

Depending on reliable information

The second important aspect of democracy is this – it depends on reliable information about the evidence for various policy options.

One reason we trust democracy as a system of governance is the idea that it can deliver “better” decisions and outcomes than autocracy, because the “wisdom of crowds” outperforms any one individual. But the benefits of this wisdom vanish if people are pervasively disinformed.

Disinformation about climate change is a well-documented example. The fossil fuel industry understood the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels at least as early as the 1960s. Yet they spent decades funding organisations that denied the reality of climate change. This disinformation campaign has delayed climate mitigation by several decades – a case of public policy being thwarted by false information.

We’ve seen a similar misinformation trajectory in the COVID-19 pandemic, although it happened in just a few years rather than decades. Misinformation about COVID varied from claims that 5G towers rather than a virus caused the disease, to casting doubt on the effectiveness of lockdowns or the safety of vaccines.

The viral surge of misinformation led to the World Health Organisation introducing a new term – infodemic – to describe the abundance of low-quality information and conspiracy theories.

Read more:
‘It’s almost like grooming’: how anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, and the far-right came together over COVID

A common denominator of misinformation

Strikingly, some of the same political operatives involved in denying climate change have also used their rhetorical playbook to promote COVID disinformation. What do these two issues have in common?

One common denominator is suspicion of government solutions to societal problems. Whether it’s setting a price on carbon to mitigate climate change, or social distancing to slow the spread of COVID, contrarians fear the policies they consider to be an attack on personal liberties.

An ecosystem of conservative and free-market think tanks exists to deny any science that, if acted on, has the potential to infringe on “liberty” through regulations.

There is another common attribute that ties together all organised disinformation campaigns – whether about elections, climate change or vaccines. It’s the use of personal attacks to compromise people’s integrity and credibility.

Election workers in the US were falsely accused of committing fraud by those who fraudulently claimed the election had been “stolen” from Trump.

Climate scientists have been subject to harassment campaigns, ranging from hate mail to vexatious complaints and freedom-of-information requests. Public health officials such as Anthony Fauci have been prominent targets of far-right attacks.

The new frontier in attacks on scientists

It is perhaps unsurprising there is now a new frontier in the attacks on scientists and others who seek to uphold the evidence-based integrity of democracy. It involves attacks and allegations of bias against misinformation researchers.

Such attacks are largely driven by Republican politicians, in particular those who have endorsed Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election.

The misinformers are seeking to neutralise research focused on their own conduct by borrowing from the climate denial and anti-vaccination playbook. Their campaign has had a chilling effect on research into misinformation.

Read more:
Inoculate yourself against election misinformation campaigns – 3 essential reads

How do we move on from here?

Psychological research has contributed to legislative efforts by the European Union, such as the Digital Services Act or Code of Practice, which seek to make democracies more resilient against misinformation and disinformation.

Research has also investigated how to boost the public’s resistance to misinformation. One such method is inoculation, which rests on the idea people can be protected against being misled if they learn about the rhetorical techniques used to mislead them.

In a recent inoculation campaign involving brief educational videos shown to 38 million citizens in Eastern Europe, people’s ability to recognise misleading rhetoric about Ukrainian refugees was frequently improved.

It remains to be seen whether these initiatives and research findings will be put to use in places like the US, where one side of politics appears more threatened by research into misinformation than by the risks to democracy arising from misinformation itself.

We’d like to acknowledge our colleagues Ullrich Ecker, Naomi Oreskes, Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden who coauthored the journal article on which this article is based. More

A federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted November 1–5 from a sample of 1,602, gave Labor 35% of the primary vote (down two since October), the Coalition 30% (down one), the Greens 13% (up one), One Nation 7% (steady), the UAP 2% (steady), independents 9% (steady) and others 4% (up two).

Resolve does not give a two party estimate until close to elections, but an estimate based on applying 2022 election preference flows gives Labor a 57–43 lead, unchanged since October. While this poll was published today, it was taken over a week ago, before the November 7 interest rate rise.

Resolve’s polls since the 2022 election have been far better for Labor than other polls. Other recent federal polls have been last week’s Newspoll and Redbridge poll that gave Labor respectively a 52–48 and a 53.5–46.5 lead, a 52–48 Labor lead in Morgan and a 48–46 Labor lead in a late October Essential poll including undecided voters.

While Resolve’s voting intentions are much better for Labor than other recent polls, their leaders’ ratings are not. On Anthony Albanese, 46% thought he was doing a poor job and 39% a good job, for a net approval of -6, down seven points since October. Albanese’s net approval was +27 after the May budget.

Dutton’s net approval improved 11 points since October to -4, his best net approval since the election and the first time in any poll Dutton has had a better net approval than Albanese. Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 40–27, a narrowing from 47–25 previously.

The Liberals extended their lead over Labor on economic management from 35–33 to 34–27. On keeping the cost of living low, the Liberals reversed a 31–27 Labor lead in October to take a 29–24 lead. These are the Liberals’ best results on these issues since the election. With 52% naming cost of living as the highest priority for their vote, this issue matters.

Voters are pessimistic about the economic outlook. In the next three months, 50% expect the economy to get worse and just 8% improve. In the next year, it’s 41% get worse and 23% improve.

By 60–19, voters said their income had not kept up with inflation over the past year. By 64–8, they expected inflation to get worse in the near future. By 65–9, they did not think interest rate rises are coming to an end.

Morgan poll and additional questions from other polls

In last week’s Morgan federal poll, conducted October 30 to November 5 from a sample of 1,371, Labor led by 52–48, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Primary votes were 35% Coalition, 31.5% Labor, 13.5% Greens and 20% for all Others.

Voters in last week’s Newspoll were also asked whether they approved or disapproved of five measures to help with cost of living.

Subsidising energy bills was most supported at 84% approve, followed by subsidising fuel prices (81%), cutting government spending (77%), giving tax cuts to individuals (73%) and giving cash payments to low-income families (56%).

In additional questions from Redbridge, by 50–36 voters thought the Albanese government was not focused on the right priorities. By 50–30, they thought the Coalition was not ready for government.

Essential had questions on the Melbourne Cup that were released on Cup Day November 7 in The Guardian from the previous national Essential poll in late October.

On interest in the Cup, 11% said they had high interest (down four since 2022), 24% moderate interest (down seven), 27% low interest (up three) and 35% no interest (up seven). On betting, 13% regularly bet on horses and the Cup (down five) and 26% rarely bet on horses but make an exception for the Cup (down three).

On attitudes to the Melbourne Cup, 65% said it is a unique part of Australia’s national identity (down seven), 48% said it promotes unhealthy gambling behaviour (up three) and 36% said it normalises animal cruelty (up two).

US off-year elections

While the United States presidential election is in November 2024, there were some state elections on November 7. I covered the results for The Poll Bludger. Democrats performed well in the headline races, holding the Kentucky governorship and gaining control of the Virginia legislature, while Ohio passed two referendums supported by Democrats.

However, the legislative elections were mediocre for Democrats, as they did worse than Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. US polls show Biden struggling against Donald Trump, and these elections should not change our opinion of 2024.

NSW Resolve poll: drop for both major parties’ primary votes

A New South Wales state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted with the federal October and November Resolve polls from a sample of 1,100, gave Labor 36% of the primary vote (down two since September), the Coalition 32% (down four), the Greens 13% (up four), independents 12% (down one) and others 7% (up three).

No two-party estimate was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated a 56.5–43.5 Labor lead, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since September. Labor Premier Chris Minns held a 35–13 lead over the Liberals’ Mark Speakman as preferred premier (41–14 in September). More

In September 2023, Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to join strikers on a picket line. He told car workers that they “deserve a significant raise and other benefits”.

Even more surprisingly perhaps, those same workers – in a dispute with three of America’s biggest car manufacturers – were later praised by Donald Trump. Meanwhile in the UK, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to repeal anti-strike laws, and “unequivocally” support the right to strike.

It seems that ongoing – and largely successful – strike action in both the UK and the US has forced political leaders to take trade unions more seriously than they have for decades.

There is a shifting balance of power towards the unions, with employers increasingly agreeing settlements in the strikers’ favour. In the UK, key workers in sectors such as education, healthcare and transport continue to strike in pursuit of better pay and conditions – no doubt encouraged by the successes they have seen elsewhere.

For example, in October last year, striking barristers received a 15% pay rise, while London bus drivers ended their industrial action after accepting a pay deal worth 18% in February 2023. Then in July, Royal Mail workers concluded a three-year dispute after receiving a 10% rise .

In the US, a well-publicised strike which stopped production of popular TV shows and films ended in success for the Writers Guild of America, bolstering action by striking actors who have now agreed a “tentative” deal with Hollywood studios.

Low numbers and high barriers

That successful strike action is taking place at such a size and scale is remarkable considering the various hurdles still being faced by unions in both countries.

UK unions, once powerful enough to bring down a government (as when Edward Heath succumbed to the National Union of Mineworkers in 1974), have faced an increasingly restrictive environment. This culminated in 2016 legislation which established high legal barriers for strike action, such as requiring a 50% turnout, or placing tight restrictions on where and how pickets can be conducted.

In the US, striking rights are weaker still, with the balance of power overwhelmingly favouring employers. Every single state (except for Montana) is an “at will” state, meaning that an employer can effectively dismiss an employee at any time, for any reason (if the decision is not illegal, such as being discriminatory).

Membership levels also paint a depressing picture for trade unions. In the UK, just 22.3% of workers were part of a union in 2022. In the US, the proportion is 10.1%, and 84% of households do not include a single union member.

For younger workers, with no memory or experience of what unions have achieved in the past, the numbers are even lower. Only 4.4% of US workers aged 16 to 24 are members of a union, and in the UK it’s just 3.7%.

Lower levels of union membership results in less bargaining power, and therefore a weakening of employment rights and job security – which again makes the recent levels of industrial action a surprise.

Striking a blow

Falling membership also has a direct impact on the number of working days lost to industrial action, with substantial declines in recent decades. The US saw a peak of 52.8 million lost working days in 1970, and a low of 200,000 in 2014.

In the UK, 29.5 million working days lost in 1979 went down to as little as 170,000 in 2015.

But this vital metric of successful unionisation is also changing, with the number of days lost rising to 2.2 million in the US, and 2.5 million in the UK in 2022.

This suggests unions are becoming much more effective at galvanising the members they do have. An increase in the number of lost working days implies that workers’ feel like they can take industrial action, and that such action will actually make a difference.

This snowball effect will only embolden unions further, and aggrieved workers will feel more confident about standing up to their employers.

The fact that workers seem to be feeling empowered despite low numbers and an increase in the barriers to strike action, begs an important question about what is behind the current resurgence.

It may be down to the cost-of-living crisis spurring strained workers to demand above-inflation pay rises. Or it may be thanks to unemployment levels being at their lowest in nearly 50 years, providing substantial bargaining power and leverage.

Many employers would struggle to find replacement workers at the moment, especially highly skilled ones, like those in the car industry. Unions know this, and therefore feel more comfortable agitating for better terms and conditions.

Responding to the unions’ apparent new levels of confidence, the UK government recently introduced legislation designed to force some strikers back to work. Meanwhile Labour, which receives substantial funding from unions, is seeking to walk a tightrope of pleasing both workers and employers as it seeks a broad electoral coalition.

Both parties need to accept that trade unionism is experiencing a revival few thought possible – and one that shows no signs of stopping. More

When former President Bill Clinton showed up at the White House in early 2023, he was there to join President Joe Biden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act. It was hard to avoid the fact that it had been three decades since Clinton was in office – yet at 77, he’s somehow three years younger than Biden.

Biden, now 80 years old, is the first octogenarian to occupy the Oval Office – and his main rival, former President Donald Trump, is 77. A Monmouth University poll taken in October 2023 showed that roughly three-quarters of voters think Biden is too old for office, and nearly half of voters think Trump is too old to serve.

My former boss, President George H.W. Bush, happily chose not to challenge Clinton again in the 1996 election. If he had run and won, he would have been 72 at the 1997 inauguration. Instead, he enjoyed a great second act filled with humanitarian causes, skydiving and grandchildren. Bush’s post-presidential life, and American ideals of retirement in general, raise the question of why these two men, Biden and Trump – who are more than a decade and a half beyond the average American retirement age – are stepping forward again for one of the hardest jobs in the world.

A trend toward older people

Trump and Biden are two of the three oldest men to ever serve as president. For 140 years, William Henry Harrison held the record as the oldest person ever elected president, until Ronald Reagan came along. Harrison was a relatively spry 68 when he took office in 1841, and Reagan was 69 at his first inauguration in 1981.

When Reagan left office at age 77, he was the oldest person ever to have served as president. Trump left office at age 74, making him the third-oldest to hold the office, behind Reagan and Biden.

According to the Census Bureau, the median age in America is 38.9 years old. But with the average ages in the House and Senate at 58 and 64, respectively, a word often used to describe the nation’s governing class is “gerontocracy.”

Teen Vogue, which recently published a story explaining the word to younger voters, defines the term as “government by the elderly.” Gerontocracies are more common among religious leadership such as the Vatican or the ayatollahs in Iran. They were also common in communist ruling committees such as the Soviet Politburo during the Cold War. In democracies, elderly leaders are less common.

Beyond the White House

Biden and Trump aren’t the only aging leaders in the U.S. It’s a bipartisan trend: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, is 72, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, is 81. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley was just reelected and has turned 90, with no plans to retire. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is 81 and hasn’t mentioned retirement at all.

In the House, California Democrat and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at age 83, just announced she’s running for reelection for her 19th full term in office. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who serves as the nonvoting delegate from Washington, D.C., are both 86. Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers and California Democrat Maxine Waters are both 85. Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer is 84. The list goes on, and none of these politicians has indicated they’re retiring.

A local pharmacist on Capitol Hill made headlines a few years ago when he revealed that he was filling Alzheimer’s medication prescriptions for members of Congress. Every one of the 20 oldest members of Congress is at least 80, and this is the third-oldest House and Senate since 1789.

In July 2023, Sen. Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze while speaking with the media, raising questions about his age and health.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Delayed retirement

What’s going on here?

Most baby boomers who delay retirement do so because they can’t afford to stop working, due to inflation or lack of savings. But all of these political leaders have plenty of money in the bank – many are millionaires. If they retired, they would enjoy government pensions and health care benefits in addition to Medicare. So for them, it’s not likely financial.

One theory is that it’s denial. No one likes to be reminded of their own mortality. I know people who equate retirement with death, often because of others they know who have passed away just after stepping down — which may explain why both Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed so long on the job, dying while still in office at age 90 and 87, respectively.

For others, it’s identity-driven. Many of the senior leaders I’ve seen have worked so hard for so long that their entire identity is tied to their jobs. Plus, years of hard work means they don’t have hobbies to enjoy in their remaining years.

Another theory is ego. Some lawmakers think they’re indispensable – that they’re the only ones who can possibly do the job. They’re not exactly humble.

In the political world, their interest is often about power as well. These are the types who think: Why wouldn’t I want to keep casting deciding votes in a closely divided House or Senate, or keep giving speeches and flying around on Air Force One as president, or telling myself I’m saving democracy?

It’s easy to see why so few of them want to walk away.

Age limits?

There have been calls to impose age limits for federal elected office. After all, federal law enforcement officers have mandatory retirement at 57. So do national park rangers. Yet the most stressful job in the world has no upper age limit.

For those who think mandatory retirement is ageist and arbitrary, there are other options: Republican candidate Nikki Haley has called for compulsory mental competency tests for elected leaders who are 75 and older, though she has said passing wouldn’t be a required qualification for office, and failing wouldn’t be cause for removal. A September 2023 poll shows huge majorities of Americans support competency testing. That way, the public would know who was sharp and who was not. Sounds like a fine idea to me.

So does having the generosity to step aside and think of others. And having the wisdom to realize that life is short and about more than just going to work. And having the grace to do what John F. Kennedy, the nation’s second-youngest president, once said: to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.

My colleague professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, puts it well: “I’m 70, so I have great sympathy for these people: 80 is looking a lot younger than it used to, as far as I’m concerned. But no, it’s ridiculous. We’ve got to get back to electing people in their 50s and early 60s.” And the polling shows that most Americans would say, “Amen, brother.” More

Misinformation is a key global threat, but Democrats and Republicans disagree about how to address the problem. In particular, Democrats and Republicans diverge sharply on removing misinformation from social media.

Only three weeks after the Biden administration announced the Disinformation Governance Board in April 2022, the effort to develop best practices for countering disinformation was halted because of Republican concerns about its mission. Why do Democrats and Republicans have such different attitudes about content moderation?

My colleagues Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts and I found in a study published in the journal Science Advances that Democrats and Republicans not only disagree about what is true or false, they also differ in their internalized preferences for content moderation. Internalized preferences may be related to people’s moral values, identities or other psychological factors, or people internalizing the preferences of party elites.

And though people are sometimes strategic about wanting misinformation that counters their political views removed, internalized preferences are a much larger factor in the differing attitudes toward content moderation.

Internalized preferences or partisan bias?

In our study, we found that Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to want to remove misinformation, while Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to consider removal of misinformation as censorship. Democrats’ attitudes might depend somewhat on whether the content aligns with their own political views, but this seems to be due, at least in part, to different perceptions of accuracy.

Previous research showed that Democrats and Republicans have different views about content moderation of misinformation. One of the most prominent explanations is the “fact gap”: the difference in what Democrats and Republicans believe is true or false. For example, a study found that both Democrats and Republicans were more likely to believe news headlines that were aligned with their own political views.

But it is unlikely that the fact gap alone can explain the huge differences in content moderation attitudes. That’s why we set out to study two other factors that might lead Democrats and Republicans to have different attitudes: preference gap and party promotion. A preference gap is a difference in internalized preferences about whether, and what, content should be removed. Party promotion is a person making content moderation decisions based on whether the content aligns with their partisan views.

We asked 1,120 U.S. survey respondents who identified as either Democrat or Republican about their opinions on a set of political headlines that we identified as misinformation based on a bipartisan fact check. Each respondent saw one headline that was aligned with their own political views and one headline that was misaligned. After each headline, the respondent answered whether they would want the social media company to remove the headline, whether they would consider it censorship if the social media platform removed the headline, whether they would report the headline as harmful, and how accurate the headline was.

Deep-seated differences

When we compared how Democrats and Republicans would deal with headlines overall, we found strong evidence for a preference gap. Overall, 69% of Democrats said misinformation headlines in our study should be removed, but only 34% of Republicans said the same; 49% of Democrats considered the misinformation headlines harmful, but only 27% of Republicans said the same; and 65% of Republicans considered headline removal to be censorship, but only 29% of Democrats said the same.

Even in cases where Democrats and Republicans agreed that the same headlines were inaccurate, Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to want to remove the content, while Republicans were nearly twice as likely as Democrats to consider removal censorship.

We didn’t test explicitly why Democrats and Republicans have such different internalized preferences, but there are at least two possible reasons. First, Democrats and Republicans might differ in factors like their moral values or identities. Second, Democrats and Republicans might internalize what the elites in their parties signal. For example, Republican elites have recently framed content moderation as a free speech and censorship issue. Republicans might use these elites’ preferences to inform their own.

When we zoomed in on headlines that are either aligned or misaligned for Democrats, we found a party promotion effect: Democrats were less favorable to content moderation when misinformation aligned with their own views. Democrats were 11% less likely to want the social media company to remove headlines that aligned with their own political views. They were 13% less likely to report headlines that aligned with their own views as harmful. We didn’t find a similar effect for Republicans.

Our study shows that party promotion may be partly due to different perceptions of accuracy of the headlines. When we looked only at Democrats who agreed with our statement that the headlines were false, the party promotion effect was reduced to 7%.

Implications for social media platforms

We find it encouraging that the effect of party promotion is much smaller than the effect of internalized preferences, especially when accounting for accuracy perceptions. However, given the huge partisan differences in content moderation preferences, we believe that social media companies should look beyond the fact gap when designing content moderation policies that aim for bipartisan support.

Future research could explore whether getting Democrats and Republicans to agree on moderation processes – rather than moderation of individual pieces of content – could reduce disagreement. Also, other types of content moderation such as downweighting, which involves platforms reducing the virality of certain content, might prove to be less contentious. Finally, if the preference gap – the differences in deep-seated preferences between Democrats and Republicans – is rooted in value differences, platforms could try to use different moral framings to appeal to people on both sides of the partisan divide.

For now, Democrats and Republicans are likely to continue to disagree over whether removing misinformation from social media improves public discourse or amounts to censorship. More