Words matter. These are the best Kristen Soltis Anderson Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The idea that someone, somewhere will campaign in a positive, uplifting way on an agenda that can inspire Americans? I’m sadly done holding my breath.
I remember fancying myself a junior ‘McCainiac’ in 2000, though politics were rarely discussed in our household.
Election losses are always an inkblot test for partisans. If a candidate’s defeat has no clear and obvious cause, if the data points are all over the map, it is easy for those on the sidelines to claim, ‘Candidate X would have won if only he or she had been more like… me.’
Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they’re much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren’t top of mind.
Congress has been productive when focusing on bites of policy that don’t inflame the divisions within the party and quietly do the work of governing.
My slice of the millennial generation, as we grew up, became – to the dismay of the GOP – a bloc of fairly consistently Democratic voters.
Candidates, of course, often claim that they want to run ‘a purely positive campaign,’ but this rarely materializes.
Young voters may be growing up in an era of increased global connection, cooperation and commerce. But they’re very open to politicians who tell them it is these very things that are keeping elites in power and keeping their generation down.
Boosting STEM education opportunities for young women globally is one critical way that the U.S. can promote women’s equality, as well as economic development, around the world.
My dad is an electrical engineer. So he was always very focused on, you know, teaching his daughters about, you know, science, math, technology. None of us actually became engineers for our careers, but I always had that exposure when I was young, and I just loved playing computer games.
Women want fair taxes, a growing economy, affordable health care, secure borders, and the defeat of ISIS. They don’t need the solutions to be wrapped in pink. They just want problems solved.
Women face unique challenges in society, no doubt. But focusing narrowly on women as a special interest group isn’t the winning play. The ability to pay your bills, send your kids to a good school, and keep your family safe are ‘women’s issues’ after all.
Tax reform exists, sort of, as an outline – miles away from being actual passed legislation.
For some in my generation, Sept. 11th was a moment of political awakening. For others, the Iraq War or the financial crisis or the rise of Obama were the major events of their teenage years that began to lay the foundation for their views.
It was weird that I was a young person who was Republican. And I wanted to get at the heart of why it was that so many people of my generation thought that being Republican just wasn’t for them. They thought that conservative ideas just weren’t for them.
Obamacare itself did not become popular until the middle of 2017, when the risk of repeal was the greatest; for the bulk of 2010 after passage, it was unpopular by double-digit margins.
For federal races, being able to carefully navigate the Trump Era is a significant challenge.
As a member of the oldest slice of the Millennial generation, my teenage years spanned the late 1990s through the start of the new millennium. I spent that time watching a lot of MTV’s ‘Total Request Live’, ‘Dawson’s Creek’, and wearing out a dual VHS tape of ‘Titanic’.
I dreamed of being like Sam Seaborn on ‘The West Wing’.
One thing that is fairly undeniable about Trump – love him or loathe him – is his understanding of how to manipulate the media and to perpetuate a symbiotic relationship with the press.
I do not think it is a coincidence that young people gravitated toward populist voices in the French election and that the two issue positions where Donald Trump and young voters seem to agree most – global engagement and trade – are rooted in populism.
When talented, qualified women take on greater responsibility, the simple fact of being talented and qualified is hardly enough to shield them from the gender-specific animosity that will come their way.
‘Staunch conservatives’ and ‘free marketeers’ are fairly typical Republicans, while the ‘American preservationists’ are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.
Major realigning events can reshape coalitions and change how large groups of people view politics, policy, and the parties.
Not all change and disruption succeeds, to be sure.
Trump won 44.4 percent of votes in Virginia in 2016. At press time, Ed Gillespie had won 45 percent of the vote in 2017.
In 2010, voters certainly hit the brakes on the Obama presidency. Fast forward to the 2016 election, where voters yanked up on the emergency brake and did a donut in the parking lot. Now, the car has stopped. We sit here dizzy for a moment, looking to get on the road again.
The things that frustrate one piece of Trump’s coalition often endear him to or embolden another wing of the coalition.
In the United States, it is unmistakable that young people have broken away from the political right and have gravitated to more leftist-populist figures like Bernie Sanders.
I think ‘Candy Crush’ may be fading in popularity, but there’s always something new that’s popping up.
I had a history teacher who taught us a lot about the Cold War. You had these examples of countries where the government had tried to manage the economy really intensely, and it ended up being bad for the citizens there. I found myself beginning to lean more right on economic issues.
President Trump, who made his name in the business world and built a brand as a successful CEO via a reality TV show that punished incompetence, was not just elected for a series of tough policy views.
Obama’s numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.
For thousands of years, humans have used the art of storytelling to motivate and persuade.
When people note that more and more voters are cutting their landline phones and that more and more people are refusing to pick up phone calls from numbers they don’t know, they are identifying problems that the polling industry has long struggled with and continue to try to adapt to.
If there is one issue where one could justifiably assume that Republicans are all in agreement, it is on lowering taxes.
Overall, America’s math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have risen since the 1990s though remain disappointing when compared to the rest of the globe.
Polling is an art as well as a science, and the art of crafting good questions is still vital.
Hillary Clinton famously embraced the Trump-originated label ‘nasty woman’ as yet another way to show just how bad Donald Trump was to women.
Republicans can’t always agree on where to cut spending. They certainly can’t agree on what to do about entitlements. There isn’t a unified foreign policy vision, and there’s no consensus on immigration reform.
If a woman rising in power is too tough or aggressive, she’s attacked for it. If she’s attractive, she’s accused of having used that to her advantage. And even if a woman is beyond qualified for a role, there will always be those who raise doubts about if she’s really qualified.
In the year 2000, the very youngest members of the Baby Boomer crew were in their mid-30s while the oldest Boomers were mid-50s. That year, the Boomers were a generation divided somewhat equally between the GOP and Democrats.
Either people are changing their minds about Trump, or increasing numbers of his supporters are deciding it is too embarrassing to admit they support him. Neither is a particularly good position to be in.
What is a fair way to structure our economy? To handle those who did not come to America legally? To distribute scarce public resources and benefits?
A compelling story requires conflict, friction, an obstacle to be overcome.
I have written time and again about the damage the Republican Party has done to itself with the millennial generation.
Those who are able to afford to live in a neighborhood with ‘good schools’ will do so, knowing that a good education is the key to good opportunity for their children.
Thoughtful education programs and access to effective forms of contraception are key to preventing unplanned pregnancy.
In 2012, when Mitt Romney named Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, Democrats scoffed and accused Republicans of trying to ignite a new Cold War.
There’s no counting the number of times the media have asked, ‘Will this be the thing that drives Donald Trump’s supporters away from him? Is this finally the time?’