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PRRI's Robert P. Jones: "Donald Trump sees himself as the king of kings"
The American people need to give up childish things and do the necessary hard work if they are to have any chance of saving their democracy from Trumpism and the larger right-wing antidemocracy revolutionary project. As James Baldwin counseled in a 1962 essay that appeared in the New York Times Book Review, 'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.' Unfortunately, there are very few indications of such newfound maturity. The American people remain in a deep slumber and state of learned helplessness as Donald Trump and his forces continue with the shock and awe campaign against American democracy, civil society, the rule of law, the Constitution and human decency. The mainstream news media as an institution appears to have chosen a strategy of anticipatory obedience and compliance, if not collaboration, in normalizing Trumpism and his attempts to become the country's first elected dictator. The Democratic Party is mired in infighting and a perpetual post-mortem about how and why it was routed by Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans in the 2024 election. The concept of how to be an effective opposition party seems outside the grasp of its leaders. Pro-democracy civil society organizations and the courts are trying to resist Trump's attempts to neutralize them. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has great leverage in such a struggle and is using the near-limitless resources of the State to impose his will. For example, while the courts have repeatedly ordered a halt or pause on the Trump administration's actions, it has and continues to treat such orders and rulings as optional, rather than as the commands of a co-equal branch of government, per the Constitution. Donald Trump was democratically elected. By choosing him over President Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris, a majority of voters endorsed Donald Trump's values, character, behavior and public aspirations to be a dictator on 'day one'; This is a damning indictment. After more than 10 years of the Age of Trump and all the horrible things it has spawned and encouraged, public opinion polls show that there are still many tens of millions of Americans who will not abandon Donald Trump under any circumstances. Moreover, by some metrics, Donald Trump has actually expanded his base of support among the most disgruntled and alienated members of the American public. To that point, polling by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has consistently shown that white right-wing Christians are the bedrock of Donald Trump's support. This level of devotion gives Trump a great amount of power and flexibility in his quest for unlimited power because unlike his predecessors, he has a cult-like following that he can use to claim democratic legitimacy combined with autocratic powers and a willingness to shatter America's political and societal institutions to achieve his personal and political goals. This combination is a powerful force multiplier for competitive authoritarianism and perpetual MAGA rule by Donald Trump and his chosen successors. Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future," as well as "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity." In this conversation, Jones emphasizes how racism, white racial resentment, and white identity politics are central to Donald Trump's appeal and the rise of his authoritarian populist movement. The denial and evasion of this reality by many white Americans — especially liberals and moderates in the news media and political class — explains why they have been so ineffective in stopping the rise of Trumpism and the larger antidemocracy project. Jones reflects on the Trump administration's thought crime regime and what it feels like to be the author of a book that has been censored for being 'unpatriotic' and contrary to 'American values.' Jones also explains how 'conservative' so-called 'values voters' have now replaced those values with Donald Trump and MAGA and see him as a tool to impose a White Christian nationalist theocracy on the American people. At the end of this conversation, Jones warns that the future of American democracy and 'free and fair' elections in 2026 and beyond are far from guaranteed. You and I have been engaging in a years-long conversation about the Age of Trump and America's embattled democracy. Trump is back in power as we warned. It has been more than 120 days, and matters are very dire here in the United States. How are you feeling? Even as someone who lives and breathes politics in the United States, I continue to be in a state of perpetual disbelief. On the one hand, there's not much at this point that President Trump could do that really would surprise me. But at the same time, the speed of the destruction he has commanded and unleashed on so many fronts makes my head spin. I was prepared for Trump's return to the presidency to be ugly and disastrous. But seeing the reality of it — especially up close here in Washington, DC, where so many patriotic public servants' lives have been decimated by Trump's attacks on our government institutions — has been very upsetting. I love my country, and it is painful to watch it being dismantled and destroyed by Trump and his MAGA forces. The Age of Trump and this assault on multiracial democracy have been the norm for American society. Black and brown Americans have only been equal citizens under the law for 60 or so years. In the immediate sense, the Age of Trump is the White backlash and White frontlash to President Obama, the country's first black president. But its origins are much deeper. Many white Americans seem to be in shock and still stunned because they believed in an America that did not really exist; Trumpism is quintessentially American. I think you're right. I am white. Most white Americans are having a much harder time digesting what they're seeing from Donald Trump than Black Americans and other people of color, for the reasons you just explained. Most Black Americans have had the experience of living under a government that was openly malevolent toward them. They either directly experienced or otherwise know the history of Jim Crow racism. They have deeply felt these feelings before. It is not new, nor is its revival a shocking surprise. On the other hand, white Americans, for most of our nation's history, hypocritically said they supported democracy while still supporting white supremacy. The Civil Rights Movement fully exposed that hypocrisy and deep contradiction in American society, but white Americans have made heroic efforts not to see it. That is why so many White Americans are still, a decade after Trump's first rise to power, expressing surprise at the MAGA movement's hostility to democracy. I also do not believe that White Americans as a group have the coping skills to deal with the challenge of Trumpism to our democracy and freedom in the same way that Black Americans do. Black Americans created institutions of resistance and survival, including the Black church and a music and larger cultural life that channels the energy of survival and resistance. Most white Americans do not have that kind of history and resilience to fall back upon. In all, for many white Americans, the Age of Trump left them with a deep sense of vertigo. They feel, many for the first time, that their world is spinning, but really, it's just that we are all finally reaping the white supremacist whirlwind. How are your colleagues who work in civil society organizations feeling right now? People are reacting in a wide range of ways. Some people are ducking and covering. For example, they are scrubbing their websites and materials of certain words and phrases such as "diversity," "equity," "inclusion," "race," "racism," "systemic," etc., etc. But there are other organizations and leaders saying "No!" We are not going to alter our mission statements and retreat. We have long histories and values we're committed to, and we're going to stay the course. And you know what? If we go down, then we are going to go down while being true to our mission. We at PRRI are committed to taking that course. There are recent inspiring examples of that type of integrity and courage. Here is just one: the Episcopal Church refused to participate in the Trump administration's resettlement program for Afrikaners. The Episcopal Church has had a refugee resettlement program for more than four decades that's been in partnership with the United States government. They have helped needy and deserving people from all over the world get their footing here in the United States. Through common membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion, The American Episcopal Church is tightly connected with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA). The Episcopal Church courageously refused to play its assigned role in what is essentially a Trump-produced white supremacist morality play. Moreover, the Episcopal Church, in an act of protest, is shutting down their entire four decades-long resettlement program rather than comply with helping the Trump administration with its white identity politics propaganda program. The Afrikaners are the descendants of and direct beneficiaries of Apartheid in South Africa. By privileging those Afrikaners over Black and brown refugees, many who have been waiting in line for years and who are actually deserving of help and protection, Trump is sending a very clear message about his and the administration's values and priorities. The Episcopal Church is a role model of resistance and principle in this dark time. As part of its national whitewashing and Orwellian memory hole "patriotic education" program, the Trump administration is censoring books, targeting universities and colleges, and the American educational system more broadly, and even attacking museums and libraries. Your book was banned at the US Naval Academy. How does it feel to have such an "honor" and "distinction?" The Nazis burned books to destroy knowledge. It was an analog world then. Now we are in a digital world, and the Trump administration can destroy and suppress knowledge and the truth with the push of a button. In addition to so much digital destruction, which materially would be the biggest book burning in history, the Trump administration is resorting to old-fashioned book bans. My book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, was one of 381 books, including seven books on Christianity, banned from the US Naval Academy. Guess what? Quite predictably, all those books were about Christianity's complicity with racism and white supremacy. But Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" was not banned. Apparently, books about Christianity's complicity with racism and white supremacy are too dangerous for midshipmen to read, but "Mein Kampf" is not. But there has been important pushback. The New York Times published two different articles on the books being banned at the Naval Academy per Donald Trump and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's directives. The American Academy of Religion organized a webinar featuring me and the other banned religious studies authors to denounce the bans and support academic freedom. A retired Navy commander organized an effort to make the banned books available to midshipmen. As a result, most of the banned books are now being put back on the shelves as the US Naval Academy. Personally, for the Trump administration to ban one of my books makes me feel like I must be doing something right. Trump has now been president for more than four months, approximately 130 days. What are the polls telling us about his support among the American people, in particular white Christians? White Christians are still largely supporting Trump. If you look at the voting and polling patterns, there is a stunning dichotomy between predominantly White Christian groups and everyone else. A recent PRRI poll shows that Trump's favorability among white evangelical Protestants is 73%. Trump also has majority support among other white Christians, too. White Catholics: 53% favor Trump. White non-evangelical Protestants: 52% favor. The LDS church, sometimes called the Mormons: 51% favor. Non-white Christian groups, non-Christian religious groups, atheists, agnostics and unaffiliated all hold unfavorable views of Trump. Given Trump's behavior such as claiming he is chosen by God, is a type of prophet, comparing himself to Jesus Christ, invoking God and Christianity to justify his policies that should be antithetical to that faith tradition and the Bible, and his willful gross failings — that are publicly documented — of his morality, character and behavior, how are white Christians justifying their continued support of him? The rationales that White right-wing Christians use to justify their support of Trump are all over the map. This is because there has been a desperate search for a plausible theological justification for a predetermined political decision for Trump. Some of the rationales for Trump's behavior are farcical, such as the claim that he is a "young Christian" who is still maturing in his faith. We heard that in the beginning with Trump. That excuse has been dropped because Trump is not changing and does not want to change. One big challenge is that Trump has explicitly said that he has never had to ask for forgiveness for anything that he has done in his life. The most fundamental commitment of being a Christian is to admit that you've sinned and that you need forgiveness from God. Even Trump's denial of that basic Christian tenet has proved no obstacle for his white Christian supporters. At this point, years later, it's clear that Trump's relationship to white Christians is transactional. Now it is more common to hear white Christians instead claiming that he is a tool of God and prophecy. Ultimately, white conservative Christians are trying to find a theological justification for what is really a political transaction that gives them the power they want in American society — and Trump is making it increasingly clear that much of that power is oriented around the preservation of white supremacy. What does it mean to be a "values voter" in the Age of Trump and his return to power? Very few people use that language anymore. We heard those types of appeals during the George W. Bush presidency and even in the beginning of Trump's first term. For obvious reasons, most white evangelicals have dropped that terminology. A major hub for white evangelical organizing in 2004, for example, is now defunct. Now their appeals are about how "Trump is going to protect our way of life" and "Trump is going to protect our religion." Only the thinnest veil of Christian morality is pulled over the MAGA movement today — it is transactional and about power. Even the cruelest policies, such as Trump's illegal renditions of immigrants to hellhole prisons in other countries without due process guaranteed to all by the Constitution, evoke little protest. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, if we take this support seriously, such cruelty is in fact a reflection of the values of these voters. After the passing of Pope Francis. Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself as Pope Francis' successor. How did white Christians, and white Catholics, specifically, react to such an act of disrespect? White evangelicals are the ones who get much of the attention from the news media and public. But white Catholics and white non-evangelical Protestants have supported Trump every time he has been on the ballot. There is no such thing as blasphemy from Donald Trump's point of view. There cannot be, since blasphemy depends on the acknowledgment of the sacred. Trump sees himself as the king of kings, the ruler of the world. Posting an image of himself as the new Pope fits Trump's brand and ego perfectly. He got very little pushback from his white Catholic base about that act of gross disrespect. What role do race and racism play in terms of white Christian support for Donald Trump and his MAGA movement? This is another area of great failure by the white-dominated mainstream American news media. There are the same evasions and rhetorical tricks applied in the news media's discussions of "working class" support for Donald Trump. Race is central here and not coincidental and/or peripheral. When I hear "working class," I always add "white" to the front of those two words. When I hear "Christian nationalism," I do the same thing. To your point, if you look at the data, you don't see huge class breaks among African Americans, for example, in terms of support for Trump. There is economic anxiety on both sides of the color line. But non-whites suffer much more from economic disadvantage and inequality than do white Americans. What we found here at PRRI, looking at the data going back to 2016, is that both economic and racial anxiety are independent predictors of support for Trump. If you were making a recipe, it would be two parts white racial anxiety and one part economic anxiety that made up the toxic cocktail that drove people to support Donald Trump. However, among Latinos in particular, there was an economic headwind that really hurt Kamala Harris and helped Donald Trump among that group. Those roads were mostly paved by economic concerns. There is also research that suggests that some Latinos and other non-whites supported Trump because they wanted a type of honorary Whiteness. But our 100-day poll shows that the group that has moved the farthest away from Trump is Latino Protestants, a group that voted two-thirds for Trump in 2024. Trump's favorability is down from 51% to 32% among that group in just 100 days. The economic chaos Trump has unleashed, together with Trump's nativism, racism, and the violence that is being visited upon Latinos as part of the mass deportations, is pushing them away from Trump. Is there anything that Donald Trump could conceivably do that would cost him the support of his white Christian followers, or his MAGA people, more generally? The public opinion research shows that Donald Trump is a fairly unpopular person in terms of his favorability. In 2016, his favorability was only 24% before he secured the nomination and became the official Republican presidential candidate. Then partisanship takes over, and the Republican Party rallies around him. Since his first term, Trump's favorability is consistently at about 40 to 45 percent. That is his ceiling and floor. But Trump's favorability among Republicans has never dipped below 70 percent. That support is rock solid, and there is virtually nothing Trump can do for the Republican base to not support him. In fact, in one of our polls here at PRRI, we asked people who had favorable views of Trump the following question: Is there anything Trump can do to lose your support? Two-thirds of the respondents said there is absolutely nothing Trump could do to lose my support. Trump's MAGA base is that locked in. It is going to take independent voters moving away from Trump to potentially weaken him to any significant and/or long-term amount. As for some hope, the polls do show that Trump's tariffs, his corruption and disregard for the rule of law, his abuses of power, and his attacks on the social safety net are hurting him with independent voters. Once the impact of the tariffs hits, I think we may see even bigger swings. If Trump launches mass deportations that feature militarized internment camps for undocumented immigrants in this country, that will also be another inflection point. But Trump's base will be with him: six out of ten Republicans support military internment camps for undocumented people. Why believe that given Donald Trump and his forces' autocratic and increasingly fascist and authoritarian assaults on democracy and the rule of law, there will even be 'free and fair' elections in 2026 and beyond? That is a huge assumption that hangs over all these conversations about the future and resistance to Trump and the MAGA revolutionary project's drive for unlimited power. When I talk about the midterms, I preface that with the qualifier, "if we have free and fair elections." It is very conditional. In theory, if the Democrats take back control of Congress, they could reverse some of Trump's most onerous policies. But, like you, I am quite worried that the midterms and beyond will not be "free and fair" and that Trump and the Republicans will basically have sham elections in key states to "legitimate" their rule. I am from Mississippi. Elections during Jim Crow segregation were supposedly "free and fair," and they were anything but. This is part of America's living history and present — the Republicans in the South are rolling back civil rights and voting rights laws to bring back a 21st-century version of Jim Crow at the ballot box. This is not something in the distant past or in a distant country. American democracy and its principle of "free and fair" elections are not something to be taken for granted. In fact, truly free and fair elections have only been with us for about one-quarter of America's nearly 250-year history. And that achievement will not be preserved without an active effort to protect it next fall.
Al-Ahram Weekly
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Al-Ahram Weekly
National Media Authority convention champions drama aligned with national values - Screens - Arts & Culture
The National Media Authority (NMA) hosted The Future of Drama convention on shaping Egyptian television and film in a way that resonates with youth while upholding national identity and societal norms. The NMA sponsored the Future of Drama convention at Maspero to heed President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's recent call to combat "vulgarity" and uphold what he described as "authentic Egyptian morals" in media. Speaking at the event, NMA chairman Ahmed Al-Muslimani said Egypt's creative industries must reflect society's ethical standards, warning against "cultural dislocation" among younger generations and the influence of foreign media. "Cinema and drama do not belong solely to their creators, they belong to a society of over 100 million people, and to an Arab and regional environment nearing half a billion," he said. "There must be public dialogue, bringing together thinkers, academics, and intellectual communities, to enhance our creativity, correct our course, and support our national goals: achieving security and prosperity, expanding intellectual and personal freedoms, and reinforcing the values of knowledge and construction." He also reiterated the NMA's commitment to producing content that "reflects the aspirations and ethics of the Egyptian people." Al-Muslimani underscored the vital role of art in confronting Egypt's contemporary challenges, including religious extremism, the drug epidemic, and escalating water scarcity driven by external pressures. He warned of a "cultural dislocation among younger generations, with foreign influences overshadowing national identity" and stressed that creators must advocate societal defence, not detachment. Discussing industry challenges The convention featured discussion sessions under two themes: Egyptian Drama Now and the Future, and Script and Money in Drama in the Age of Channels and Platforms. Egyptian Drama Now and the Future gathered a panel of esteemed creators, including director Mohamed Fadel; actors Mohamed Sobhi, Ashraf Abdel-Baki, Hani Ramzi, and Mahmoud Hemeida; screenwriters Medhat El-Adl and Mohamed Jalal Abdel-Qawi; novelist Ibrahim Abdel Meguid; and journalist and head of the drama committee at United Media Services, Ola El-Shafie. The panellists discussed the industry's challenges, including the impact of digital platforms, the need for innovative storytelling, and the importance of preserving cultural heritage. Script and Money in Drama in the Age of Channels and Platforms addressed the economic aspects of drama production. The experts discussed funding models, the role of the private and public sectors, and strategies for ensuring the sustainability of quality productions in an increasingly competitive market. In a ceremony that capped the convention, the NMA awarded the Maspero Creativity Medal to veteran actors and creators, including actors Samira Ahmed and Rashwan Tawfik, television and film director Mohamed Fadel, and screenwriter Mohamed Galal Abdel-Qawi. The award recognized their outstanding contributions to the arts and their role in shaping the narrative of Egyptian drama. Regulations: Who bears ethical responsibility? During the meeting, director Khaled Mahran introduced the Conscious Producer Initiative, which proposes establishing a certification system for producers who adhere to a code of conduct that prioritizes societal values and responsible content creation. Mahran's proposal includes forming a review committee to evaluate scripts before production, ensuring their content meets the desired ethical standards. He also recommended transforming censorship into self-responsibility, where each artist is accountable for their violations and suspended from work for a year if they breach the professional charter. Additionally, the initiative suggests creating a platform — Tell and Let Drama Speak About You — for young talents to present their ideas, fostering a new generation of storytellers who resonate with contemporary audiences. The convention highlighted the need to integrate traditional values with modern storytelling techniques. Participants acknowledged audiences' evolving preferences, particularly those of youth, and emphasized adapting content delivery methods without compromising cultural integrity. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
America's happiness crisis is a generational divide
The American people are very unhappy. The Age of Trump and the rise of authoritarian populism in the MAGA movement are both the symptom and the cause of this collective unhappiness. The unhappiness and rage that the American people feel toward the system and the elites put Trump back in power. However, America is not unique in this regard. The authoritarian populist movement is global. The 2025 World Happiness Report from the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in conjunction with Gallup, details the deep levels of unhappiness Americans are experiencing. The United States now ranks 24th in the world for happiness, a new low for the country. Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world. This year's report provides the following insights about the connections between unhappiness and America's democracy crisis: The sharp drop in social trust in the US is consistent with the fact that rising unhappiness has shifted voters almost exclusively towards the populist right (Donald Trump), and not towards the left (Bernie Sanders). The relative decline or stability in social trust in Europe is consistent with the fact that the decline in life satisfaction has split the unsatisfied electorate between the two opposite extremes of the political spectrum, depending on their level of social trust. … In Europe, citizens with low life satisfaction and low social trust, the 'anomics', tend to vote for far-right parties. In the context of the US two-party system, they tend to abstain and withdraw from public life. The fall in life satisfaction cannot be explained by economic growth, at least not by average national income, as GDP per capita has been on the rise in the US and Western Europe since the mid-2000s. Rather, it could be blamed on the feelings of financial insecurity and loneliness experienced by Americans and Europeans – two symptoms of a damaged social fabric. It is driven by almost all social categories, but in particular, by the rural, the less-educated, and, quite strikingly, by the younger generation. This low level of life satisfaction is a breeding ground for populism and the lack of social trust is behind the political success of the far right. America's young people are in a state of despair. If Americans 29 years old and younger were their own country, they would rank 62nd in the world for happiness. The 2025 World Happiness Report explains: Young adults across the globe face increasing mental health challenges. Once considered one of the happiest phases of life, young adulthood has taken a troubling turn. Young people in North America and Western Europe now report the lowest wellbeing among all age groups. In fact, World Happiness Report 2024 found that the fall in the United States' happiness ranking was largely due to a precipitous decline in wellbeing among Americans under 30…. Despite the overall trend that young adults report higher social connection than older adults, countries vary on the age-related differences in the quantity of social connection. For example, this pattern is flipped in the United States, Japan, and Australia, where young adults report the lowest social connection among all age groups. In the United States, 18% of young adults (aged 18–29) reported not having anyone that they feel close to, whereas 15% of adults aged 30–44 reported no social connection. Unlike other nations, young adults in the US also report lower quality of connection than other age groups. Mirroring these patterns, World Happiness Report 2024 also highlighted a decline in the US happiness ranking, largely driven by a drop in wellbeing in the young adult age group. Although not definitive, this provides intriguing preliminary evidence that relatively low connection among young people might factor into low wellbeing among young Americans. This finding from the 2025 World Happiness Report suggests that a radical intervention is needed to salvage the future of American democracy and society if these trends continue. In all, America's democracy crisis and the rise of authoritarian populism and neofascism are much more than 'just' an existential political challenge. It is an emotional, spiritual, intellectual, psychological and a larger crisis of meaning for Americans both as individuals and as a people. I recently spoke with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre and Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the Saïd Business School at Oxford. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is also Editor of the World Happiness Report and the co-founder of the World Wellbeing Movement, a coalition of exemplary corporations that help put wellbeing metrics at the heart of business and public policy. He warns that America's young people are experiencing the equivalent of a midlife crisis and that this will likely mean diminished incomes and wealth, lower social mobility and a lack of overall happiness and sense of well-being as they age, which will potentially cause serious harm to American society in the future. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve also provides some hope in this global era of crisis, great anxiety and dread. He explains that the 2025 World Happiness Survey shows that people across the world are generally much kinder and caring than is commonly believed. Given all the things happening in this very tumultuous and perilous time, how are you feeling? How are you trying to make sense of this all? When you ask me, 'How am I feeling?' I immediately think about this on a scale from 1 to 10. At this moment, I would probably say 9. That is the scale we use in the World Happiness Report. But that is a snapshot in time. Yesterday, I would have told you I am feeling like I am a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. So, when you ask, 'How are you feeling?' I'm giving you an emotional state that is very positive right now. But if you're asking me, how satisfied am I with my life, then that is a different question about a type of happiness and perspective that is more stable. I'm obviously worried about the state of the world, but right now, at this very moment, I am sitting in a beautiful park and enjoying it. In the same society that is experiencing the same great stress, some people are happy and others in the same immediate community and population are unhappy. What do we know about these divergent experiences among people in the same group? There is population-level happiness, which means a larger group, community or even a nation. Within that group, we are asking why some individuals and groups are happier than others. This is the science of well-being. What explains these differences? In certain cases, people will be similar in terms of income and health and where they live but be very different in terms of how they feel about their lives. That is where we dig deeper and the explanations for the differences in self-reported happiness may be mental health, personality traits, genetic predispositions, etc. Certain people, because of their predispositions, tend to see the glass as being half full or half empty to begin with. For example, there have been studies of twins where about a third of the variance in the response to the question 'How sad are you with your life" or "how happy are you with it right now" is driven by genetic differences. What is the 'science" here? And how do we define "well-being?" "Well-being" is essentially subjective. It is how you feel your life is going. From there, we get more specific by asking questions such as "how satisfied are you with your life?" "How are you feeling right now?" and then we ask questions such as "Are you experiencing joy? Are you happy right now?" We then ask questions about worry and stress. In essence, we are letting people define what happiness is and what makes them happy. We just take their answers seriously. That's our starting point. In short, the definition of well-being is how people feel their lives are going, and then the science of well-being is the systematic approach to explaining and understanding these differences. Is America happy right now? No. The average level of life satisfaction in America is lower than seven out of 10 — and that's just an average that hides a huge amount of variation. There are people in America who report feeling very happy or satisfied with their lives, and then there are a whole lot of people, and increasingly more, who are telling us that they're not satisfied with their lives. In this year's World Happiness Report, the United States ranks 24th. The United States fell out of the top twenty in 2024. The decline in well-being in the U.S. is most pronounced among young people who are younger than 30. If they were studied in isolation, they would only be the 62nd most unhappy country in the world. Americans who are 60 years old and up are much happier and would be in the top 10 if they were their own country. In all, Americans are becoming less and less happy and that is being driven by young people falling off of the proverbial and metaphorical cliff in terms of satisfaction and happiness with their lives. Here is something else that is very worrisome about young people in America and their levels of happiness. There is typically a U-shaped relationship between age and well-being, where young people are happier. Well-being drops over time until a person hits their midlife crisis, which is usually in one's early 40s, when the pressures of life are immense. Then as people age, they tend to become happier again. This holds until the very end of life when physical issues and disability become more common. That U-shaped relationship between age and well-being no longer holds true in the United States. America's young people are now as unhappy as middle-aged people. Youth in America are experiencing their midlife crisis today. But that finding raises a very difficult question: What is going to happen when the midlife crisis actually hits them? Moreover, if America's young people are having midlife crises now, and are that unhappy and dissatisfied with life, then what is going to happen to the future of the country? From the research, we know that lower levels of life satisfaction and feelings of well-being in youth lead to worse labor market outcomes, i.e. making less money later in life. What explains the severe unhappiness among America's young people as a group? There is no single explanation. We need to start by examining a combination of explanatory factors. A prominent one is anxiety about the future and the economy and living the American Dream. What will the future of work be like for a 16 or 17- or 18-year-old given the rise of artificial intelligence and the soaring cost of education? Even if you choose medicine or law or engineering, good luck catching up with AI like ChatGPT. Social media plays a huge role as well. Social media does not always lead to positive social outcomes. The World Happiness Report has this troubling finding about loneliness and young people. Social isolation and loneliness are increasing problems in the United States and other countries as well. Public health experts have gone so far as to describe social isolation and loneliness as constituting a public health crisis in the United States. The extent to which a person eats alone, sharing a meal or not, is a way of measuring social loneliness and social isolation. There's a 53% increase in dining alone in the United States over the last two decades. If you look at youth, you see they've almost doubled in terms of the proportion of dining alone. What do we know about the relationship(s) between social capital, happiness, social ties and overall well-being? These notions of social capital, social support, social trust and social connections, more generally, are so much more important than many people expect for their well-being. Our relationships with and connections to others are critically important for our happiness. People tend to focus on wealth, income, health and lifespans, both on an individual and society-wide level. But the quality of our social lives — and the levels of trust we have in one another, most notably strangers — is integral to predicting happiness and well-being. These social indicators are also important in how they relate to the global democracy crisis and the rise of populism. The fact that we're increasingly alone, as indicated, for example, by less and less sharing of meals, means that our views of the world no longer get tested. Normally, when you meet with strangers or friends and family more regularly, everybody has slightly different views on the world and politics and other matters. In response, we tend to moderate our views and compromise more. But the social isolation in combination with the social media echo chamber increases a given person's radicalization and extremism. Ultimately, people tend to be more polarized when they don't interact in a direct personal face-to-face way with people who have different views than they do. That cycle of political polarization is not easy to break. What role does happiness or lack thereof play in political polarization and extremism? What we know from the research is that as happiness and life satisfaction decrease in a population then people start voting against the incumbent party and leader, the status quo, and are generally anti-system in their beliefs. Politicians and other leaders can take advantage of the unhappiness for their own purposes. The link between happiness and well-being and political uprising or radicalization is well-documented. For example, this was seen with the Arab Spring and in other parts of the world as well. What factors help to explain the dramatic differences in happiness and well-being between the United States, the Nordic and Scandinavian countries, and Europe more broadly? In terms of wealth, a Finland or a Denmark aren't wealthier than the United States on a GDP per capita basis. But they redistribute the wealth more greatly. The rising tide lifting all boats, the welfare state helping out those that need it the most, takes away a big chunk of the anxiety that typically exists here in the United States because of extreme wealth and income inequality. Another key difference is how life expectancy is stagnant and declining for some segments of the population in the United States, where, by comparison, life expectancy and health are high and improving in Scandinavian and the Nordic countries. But what is making a big difference between the happiness of the United States and the Nordic countries is social trust. For example, if a person returns a stranger's lost wallet. The belief in the likelihood that a stranger's wallet will be returned is substantially higher in the Nordics, as compared to the United States. That's obviously a proxy for social trust in one another and trust in the institutions. What do we know about something as seemingly innocuous as returning found wallets and society-wide levels of trust? People are generally kinder than we assume them to be. That is one of the big insights from the World Happiness Report and related research. As shown in this year's World Happiness Report, people underestimate the kindness of others by a factor of two. So, in the United States, six out of 10 wallets get returned. The more money in the wallet, the more likely it is to be returned. Only a third of Americans think that wallets would actually be returned. We are underestimating by a factor of two the kindness and benevolence of other people, and that's universal. Even in the Nordic countries, 85% or so of wallets get returned in the Nordics but only 45% of the people think that lost wallets will be returned. This is true for every single country in the world. We are radically underestimating the kindness of others. What can the average American do, both for themselves and also more broadly, to improve the levels of happiness in this country? Share your meals with others. Talk to strangers. Put your phone away when you are eating with others and try to have real meaningful conversations with people where you listen closely and pay attention.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Age of Putin
Historians like to play a parlor game called periodization, in which they attempt to define an era, often by identifying it with the individual who most shaped the times: the Age of Jackson, the Age of Reagan. Usually, this exercise requires many decades of hindsight, but not so in the 21st century. Over the past 25 years, the world has bent to the vision of one man. In the course of a generation, he not only short-circuited the transition to democracy in his own country, and in neighboring countries, but set in motion a chain of events that has shattered the transatlantic order that prevailed after World War II. In the global turn against democracy, he has played, at times, the role of figurehead, impish provocateur, and field marshal. We are living in the Age of Vladimir Putin. Perhaps, that fact helps explain why Donald Trump's recent excoriation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office felt so profound. The moment encapsulated Putin's ultimate victory, when the greatest impediment to the realization of the Russian president's vision, the United States, became his most powerful ally. But Trump's slavish devotion to the Russian leader—his willingness to help Putin achieve his maximalist goals—is merely the capstone of an era. Nothing was preordained about Putin's triumph. Twenty years ago, in fact, his regime looked like it might not survive. With the color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, Russian influence in its old Soviet satellites quickly withered. The threat was that democratic revolution would spread ever closer to the core of the old empire, Moscow, as it had in the dying days of communism. Indeed, as Putin prepared to return to Russia's presidency in 2012, after a stint as prime minister, protests swelled in Moscow and spread to other Russian cities, and then kept flaring for more than a year. [Read: Putin is loving this] Preserving his power, both at home and abroad, necessitated a new set of more aggressive tactics. Resorting to the old KGB playbook, which Putin internalized as a young officer in the Soviet spy agency, Russia began meddling in elections across Europe, illicitly financing favored candidates, exploiting social media to plant conspiracy theories, creating television networks and radio stations to carry his messaging into the American and European heartlands. Just as the Soviet Union used the international communist movement to advance its goals, Putin collected his own loose network of admirers, which included the likes of the French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen, the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon, who venerated Putin for waging a robust counteroffensive on behalf of traditional values, by claiming the mantle of anti-wokeness. The fact that so many Western elites abhorred him titillated these foreign fans. Putin's objectives were always clear: He craved less hostile leaders in the West, people who would work to dismantle NATO and the European Union from within. Above all, he hoped to discredit democracy as a governing system, so that it no longer held allure for his own citizens. Scanning this list, I'm dismayed to see how many of these objectives have been realized over time, especially in the first weeks of the second Trump administration One of Putin's core objectives was the protection of his own personal fortune, built on kickbacks and money quietly skimmed from public accounts. Protecting this ill-gotten money, and that of his inner circle, relies on secrecy, misdirection, and theft, all values anathema to democracy. [Read: The simple explanation for why Trump turned against Ukraine] Kleptocrats, in the mold of Russian oligarchy, ardently desire to sock away their money in the relative safety and quiet anonymity of American real estate and banks. Not so long ago, a bipartisan consensus joined together to pass laws that would make it harder for foreign kleptocrats to abuse shell companies to move their cash to these shores. But, as one of his first orders of business, Trump has shredded those reforms. His Treasury Department announced that it would weaken enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act; his Justice Department disbanded a task force charged with targeting Russian oligarchs and relaxed the Foreign Agents Registration Act, such that Putin's allies can hire lawyers and lobbyists without having to worry about the embarrassing disclosure of those relationships. The Trump administration has essentially announced that the American financial system is open for Russia's kleptocratic business. As Putin has sought to impose his vision on the world, Ukraine has been the territory he most covets, but also the site of the fiercest resistance to him—a country that waged revolution to oust his cronies and that has resisted his military onslaught. Until last week, the United States served as the primary patron of this Ukrainian resistance. But the Trump administration has surrendered that role, thereby handing Russia incredible battlefield advantages. Because the Trump administration has cut off arms to Ukraine, it will exhaust caches of vital munitions in a few months, so it must hoard its stockpiles, limiting its capacity to fend off Russian offensives. Because the U.S. has stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv, the Ukrainian army will be without America's ability to eavesdrop on Russia's war plans. All of these decisions will further demoralize Ukraine's depleted, weary military. Just three years ago, as European and American publics draped themselves in Ukrainian flags, Putin's Russia seemed consigned to international isolation and ignominy. For succor and solidarity, Putin was forced to turn to North Korea and Iran, an axis of geopolitical outcasts. But Trump is bent on reintegrating Putin into the family of nations. He wants Russia restored to the G7, and it's only a matter of time before he eases up on sanctions that the Biden administration imposed on Russia. And Trump has done more than offer a place among the nations. By repeating Russia's own self-serving, mendacious narrative about the origins of the Ukraine war, he lent American legitimacy and moral prestige to Putin. The Russian leader's rise wasn't uninterrupted, but the ledger is filled with his victories, beginning with Brexit, an event he deeply desired and worked to make happen. That was a mere omen. His populist allies in France and Germany now constitute the most powerful opposition blocs in those countries. Within the European Union, he can count on Viktor Orbán to stymie Brussels when it is poised to act against Russian interests. Meanwhile, the European Union's foreign-policy chief claims that the 'free world needs a new leader,' and former heads of NATO worry for the organization's very survival. [Garry Kasparov: The Putinization of America] Putin is winning, because he's cunningly exploited the advantages of autocracy. His near-total control of his own polity allows him to absorb the economic pain of sanctions, until the West loses interest in them. His lack of moral compunction allowed him to sacrifice bodies on the battlefield, without any pang of remorse, an advantage of expendable corpses that Ukraine can never match. Confident in the permanence of his power, he has patiently waited out his democratic foes, correctly betting that their easily distracted public would lose interest in fighting proxy wars against him. What's most devastating about Putin's reversal of fortune is that he read Western societies so accurately. When he railed against the decadence of the West and the flimsiness of its democracy, he wasn't engaging in propaganda, he was accurately forecasting how his enemy would abandon its first principles. He seemed to intuit that the idealism of American democracy might actually vanish, not just as a foreign-policy doctrine, but as the consensus conviction of its domestic politics. Now, with a like-minded counterpart in the White House, he no longer needs to make a case against democracy to his own citizens. He can crow that the system is apparently so unappealing that even the United States is moving away from it. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
The Age of Putin
Historians like to play a parlor game called periodization, in which they attempt to define an era, often by identifying it with the individual who most shaped the times: the Age of Jackson, the Age of Reagan. Usually, this exercise requires many decades of hindsight, but not so in the 21st century. Over the past 25 years, the world has bent to the vision of one man. In the course of a generation, he not only short-circuited the transition to democracy in his own country, and in neighboring countries, but set in motion a chain of events that has shattered the transatlantic order that prevailed after World War II. In the global turn against democracy, he has played, at times, the role of figurehead, impish provocateur, and field marshal. We are living in the Age of Vladimir Putin. Perhaps, that fact helps explain why Donald Trump's recent excoriation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office felt so profound. The moment encapsulated Putin's ultimate victory, when the greatest impediment to the realization of the Russian president's vision, the United States, became his most powerful ally. But Trump's slavish devotion to the Russian leader—his willingness to help Putin achieve his maximalist goals—is merely the capstone of an era. Nothing was preordained about Putin's triumph. Twenty years ago, in fact, his regime looked like it might not survive. With the color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, Russian influence in its old Soviet satellites quickly withered. The threat was that democratic revolution would spread ever closer to the core of the old empire, Moscow, as it had in the dying days of communism. Indeed, as Putin prepared to return to Russia's presidency in 2012, after a stint as prime minister, protests swelled in Moscow and spread to other Russian cities, and then kept flaring for more than a year. Preserving his power, both at home and abroad, necessitated a new set of more aggressive tactics. Resorting to the old KGB playbook, which Putin internalized as a young officer in the Soviet spy agency, Russia began meddling in elections across Europe, illicitly financing favored candidates, exploiting social media to plant conspiracy theories, creating television networks and radio stations to carry his messaging into the American and European heartlands. Just as the Soviet Union used the international communist movement to advance its goals, Putin collected his own loose network of admirers, which included the likes of the French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen, the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon, who venerated Putin for waging a robust counteroffensive on behalf of traditional values, by claiming the mantle of anti-wokeness. The fact that so many Western elites abhorred him titillated these foreign fans. Putin's objectives were always clear: He craved less hostile leaders in the West, people who would work to dismantle NATO and the European Union from within. Above all, he hoped to discredit democracy as a governing system, so that it no longer held allure for his own citizens. Scanning this list, I'm dismayed to see how many of these objectives have been realized over time, especially in the first weeks of the second Trump administration One of Putin's core objectives was the protection of his own personal fortune, built on kickbacks and money quietly skimmed from public accounts. Protecting this ill-gotten money, and that of his inner circle, relies on secrecy, misdirection, and theft, all values anathema to democracy. Kleptocrats, in the mold of Russian oligarchy, ardently desire to sock away their money in the relative safety and quiet anonymity of American real estate and banks. Not so long ago, a bipartisan consensus joined together to pass laws that would make it harder for foreign kleptocrats to abuse shell companies to move their cash to these shores. But, as one of his first orders of business, Trump has shredded those reforms. His Treasury Department announced that it would weaken enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act; his Justice Department disbanded a task force charged with targeting Russian oligarchs and relaxed the Foreign Agents Registration Act, such that Putin's allies can hire lawyers and lobbyists without having to worry about the embarrassing disclosure of those relationships. The Trump administration has essentially announced that the American financial system is open for Russia's kleptocratic business. As Putin has sought to impose his vision on the world, Ukraine has been the territory he most covets, but also the site of the fiercest resistance to him—a country that waged revolution to oust his cronies and that has resisted his military onslaught. Until last week, the United States served as the primary patron of this Ukrainian resistance. But the Trump administration has surrendered that role, thereby handing Russia incredible battlefield advantages. Because the Trump administration has cut off arms to Ukraine, it will exhaust caches of vital munitions in a few months, so it must hoard its stockpiles, limiting its capacity to fend off Russian offensives. Because the U.S. has stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv, the Ukrainian army will be without America's ability to eavesdrop on Russia's war plans. All of these decisions will further demoralize Ukraine's depleted, weary military. Just three years ago, as European and American publics draped themselves in Ukrainian flags, Putin's Russia seemed consigned to international isolation and ignominy. For succor and solidarity, Putin was forced to turn to North Korea and Iran, an axis of geopolitical outcasts. But Trump is bent on reintegrating Putin into the family of nations. He wants Russia restored to the G7, and it's only a matter of time before he eases up on sanctions that the Biden administration imposed on Russia. And Trump has done more than offer a place among the nations. By repeating Russia's own self-serving, mendacious narrative about the origins of the Ukraine war, he lent American legitimacy and moral prestige to Putin. The Russian leader's rise wasn't uninterrupted, but the ledger is filled with his victories, beginning with Brexit, an event he deeply desired and worked to make happen. That was a mere omen. His populist allies in France and Germany now constitute the most powerful opposition blocs in those countries. Within the European Union, he can count on Viktor Orbán to stymie Brussels when it is poised to act against Russian interests. Meanwhile, the European Union's foreign-policy chief claims that the 'free world needs a new leader,' and former heads of NATO worry for the organization's very survival. Garry Kasparov: The Putinization of America Putin is winning, because he's cunningly exploited the advantages of autocracy. His near-total control of his own polity allows him to absorb the economic pain of sanctions, until the West loses interest in them. His lack of moral compunction allowed him to sacrifice bodies on the battlefield, without any pang of remorse, an advantage of expendable corpses that Ukraine can never match. Confident in the permanence of his power, he has patiently waited out his democratic foes, correctly betting that their easily distracted public would lose interest in fighting proxy wars against him. What's most devastating about Putin's reversal of fortune is that he read Western societies so accurately. When he railed against the decadence of the West and the flimsiness of its democracy, he wasn't engaging in propaganda, he was accurately forecasting how his enemy would abandon its first principles. He seemed to intuit that the idealism of American democracy might actually vanish, not just as a foreign-policy doctrine, but as the consensus conviction of its domestic politics. Now, with a like-minded counterpart in the White House, he no longer needs to make a case against democracy to his own citizens. He can crow that the system is apparently so unappealing that even the United States is moving away from it.
