How the Resist Trump movement could transform into the Tea Party of the left

Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States has sparked waves of mass protests against his administration as well as the disruption of many legislators’ town hall meetings. Melissa Deckman draws the parallels between the current emerging Resist Trump movement and 2009’s Tea Party protests against President Obama. She writes that while this new movement appears to have far more support than the Tea Party ever did, it faces significant challenges in translating this into significant electoral victories

The Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate was an important factor in Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection

Prior to the 2012 presidential election, Democrats accused the Republican Party of waging a ‘war on women’ over their opposition to abortion, and to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for employers to provide birth control coverage as part of their workplace based health insurance. In new research, Melissa Deckman and John McTague investigate how this narrative affected the outcome of the election. They find that whilevoters’ attitudes about abortion had no direct influence on whether they voted for Mitt Romney or Obama, attitudes about the birth control mandate, however, were significantly related to voting for Obama. They also write that voters were less likely to view Republican opposition to the birth control mandate as an issue of women’s personal sexual behavior, and instead perceived it as more in tune with their attitudes towards health care and social welfare in general

Challenges in Moving Toward a More Inclusive Democracy: Findings from the 2022 American Values Survey

Approximately three-quarters of Americans agree that the country is heading in the wrong direction, but there is considerable division over whether the country needs to move backward — toward an idealized, homogeneous past — or forward, toward a more diverse future. Though most Americans favor moving forward, a sizable minority yearn for a country reminiscent of the 1950s, embrace the idea that God created America to be a new promised land for European Christians, view newcomers as a threat to American culture, and believe that society has become too soft and feminine. This minority is composed primarily of self-identified Republicans, white evangelical Protestants, and white Americans without a college degree. The majority of Americans, however, especially younger Americans, the religiously unaffiliated, and Democrats, are more likely to embrace a competing vision for the future of America that is more inclusive