Brendan Nyhan

New Bright Line Watch survey results

At Bright Line Watch, we have released the results of our second expert survey on the state of American democracy. Here is coverage at The Upshot by Claire Cain Miller and Kevin Quealy (where I am a contributor):

American democracy remains healthy, but its health has worsened for the first time in recent history, according to a new survey of 1,126 political scientists.

Three-quarters of respondents said the quality of United States democracy had declined in the last two years, after four decades of stability. Twenty-one percent said there had been no change, and 4 percent said it was healthier.

The survey was the second by Bright Line Watch, a group formed by academics after the presidential election to study democratic performance in the United States over time. Compared with the first survey, conducted in February, a month into Donald J. Trump’s presidency, they said the country was doing worse on a few core democratic principles.

For more, see the Bright Line Watch website.

NHPR interview on liberal conspiracy theories

My new interview with New Hampshire Public Radio's Rick Ganley about the spread of liberal conspiracy theories during the Trump administration (MP3):

Many of these conspiracy theories or fake news stories have to do with Trump and his campaign’s connections to Russia. What are you seeing?

"I’m seeing a disturbing trend of people taking the very serious and real questions about Russian interference and using that as a pretext for all sorts of wild and unsupported conspiracy theories. These are often coming from internet personalities and people who work on social media, but they’re infiltrating into the discourse more generally through liberal elites who are amplifying them. So we’re seeing a spread of these claims out into the mainstream in a way that I think is potentially worrisome."

See also my article for The Upshot and Zack Beauchamp's piece for Vox on this issue.

New NYT: How marching for science risks politicizing it

From my new Upshot column:

Before the recent March for Science, scholars and journalists debated the likely effect of the protest: Would it defend science against politicization or unnecessarily polarize the public on the value of the scientific enterprise?

Some early evidence suggests the march may have widened the divide among liberals and conservatives in their views of scientists but not, crucially, toward the research they conduct.