Dacca, a UW alumnus who has served as Director for State Relations for the past nine years, takes the place of Randy Hodgins who is retiring.

“Joe鈥檚 expertise in advocacy, his deep understanding of the region’s policy landscape, and his commitment to building strong relationships both inside and outside the University make him uniquely positioned to step into this new role at this moment,” Cauce said. “His leadership comes at a critical time for the University amidst a leadership transition and an increasingly complex political landscape.”

Dacca鈥檚 career reflects a dedication to public service. Prior to the UW, Dacca served as federal District Director for former U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Port Angeles), Deputy District Director for former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Bremerton), and as a legislative assistant in the Washington State Senate.

“I am grateful to President Cauce for the opportunity to serve my alma mater in this important role and I am honored to continue to work alongside the talented and dedicated External Affairs team,” Dacca said. “Building on the foundation led by Vice President Randy Hodgins, we will continue to strengthen partnerships both inside and outside the University and work collaboratively to advance the UW鈥檚 dynamic, public-facing mission.”

Morgan Hickel will assume the role as Interim Director of State Relations on July 1.

Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter Election Day and facing tight battles in the swing states.

Millions of people have already voted early, but the remainder of Americans will cast their votes on Tuesday. Before the results start rolling in, UW News asked three 天美影视传媒 professors of political science to discuss what鈥檚 on their minds heading into the general election鈥檚 final hours.

, professor of political science

I’m looking at two specific predictions. The first is whether one candidate has (more or less) a clean sweep of the swing states or whether they (more or less) tie and divide the electoral college votes from the swing states. The swing state polling is effectively tied, suggesting that the latter scenario is more likely. But what if the polling is systematically overestimating or underestimating one candidate鈥檚 popularity? I suspect this is the case, and that either Harris or Trump will sweep the swing states.

If I’m right, the second prediction involves: Which candidate will sweep? I suspect it is more likely that Harris would be the candidate to sweep over Trump. There is a lot of different types of evidence out there showing the polls are likely underestimating her support or over-estimating Trump’s. There is no evidence to suggest that the polls are underestimating Trump’s support or overestimating hers 鈥� but of course, they could be, and this is all reading tea leaves. I wouldn’t be that surprised if the swing states are more divided, and there is still the possibility that Trump could sweep them.

We will get lots of vote counts in by Tuesday night from Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, which will help us to see some trends.

, professor of political science

Like everybody else who feeds on the听IV drip known as the presidential election’s horse race coverage, I will be monitoring Pennsylvania 鈥� the swingiest of swing states.

I will be looking for any evidence that Trump’s attempts to mobilize young men without college degrees by blitzing non-traditional media such as podcasts and securing endorsements from figures like Elon Musk made a big impact. I will also be watching to see whether turnout on the Republican side is influenced by President Biden’s off-the-cuff remarks about Trump’s supporters being garbage, whether he intended to say that or not.

I will also be looking for any evidence that Vice President Harris’s efforts to mobilize women around abortion and reproductive rights and against Trump’s misogynistic听language and behavior made a huge impact. Similarly, whether her overtures to suburban Republican women and Independents听with the aid of surrogates like Liz Cheney helped her cause.

There are other hypotheses that are up for testing:

Is the great re-sorting of the parties along educational lines 鈥� and cutting across other cleavages such as race, ethnicity and region 鈥� the big thing some analysts think it is? Will immigration really drive voters to the polls, particularly to vote for Trump in large听numbers?

Will voters’ memory of 20% cumulative inflation since 2021, sky-high housing prices and relatively high interest rates be as salient as some analysts believe? Or will more recent trends of enduring economic strength and a soft landing stop the momentum toward Trump on the economy?

Finally, if Harris wins, is it because she executed an incredibly difficult feat with exceeding discipline? Did she successfully manage to reinvent her image in a few short months, credibly transforming into a centrist security hawk who prizes unity and bipartisanship despite significant听baggage from her 2019 Democratic presidential primary flameout? In other words, was she able to shed her image as a hyper-progressive Bay Area liberal and come across as a unifier who appeals to folks across the political spectrum? If she wins, I am going to be looking for data that supports this thesis, because it will say a lot about American politics and the parties going forward.

, teaching professor of political science

This election presents difficult circumstances for the Democratic Party. In other elections across western democracies, incumbent governments have been defeated badly by voters angry about inflation and the other dislocations of the pandemic. The American election being a coin flip suggests that some different issues might be in play in the American context.

搁别肠别苍迟,听suggesting that Iowa 鈥� a state Trump easily carried in 2016 and 2020 鈥� is close because of a major shift among women voters. This suggests that the overturning of Roe v. Wade because of former President Trump’s three nominations to the Supreme Court is making the election more competitive.

The decision of Iowa Republicans to pass a near-total abortion ban in a pro-choice state is the obvious explanation, and the abortion issue is one obvious reason that the outcome of the听election is so uncertain.

For more information or to reach one of the faculty members, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

With the presidential election just weeks away, American political divides have once again taken center stage. While this chasm is most often attributed to disagreements on social issues, a new book argues otherwise.

鈥溾�� focuses on how former President Donald Trump 鈥� like other populists that came before him 鈥� exploits what the authors call 鈥榠nnovation inequality鈥�. Trump has been successful, they argue, because Americans are split between highly innovative and less innovative regions, or because of the gap between areas that are more technologically advanced and those that aren鈥檛. The book analyzes the origins and political implications of these divides.

Written by and , the book forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Menaldo is a 天美影视传媒 professor of political science while Wittstock received his doctorate in political science from the UW this year.

UW News spoke with Menaldo to discuss his book, the upcoming election and Trump鈥檚 campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

What made you want to write a book on this topic?

Victor Menaldo: There were three motivations. The first is that I was not satisfied with the conventional explanations for why former President Donald Trump won in 2016 and lost in 2020. The second motivation is that all the explanations focused on Trump as an individual instead of a larger phenomenon 鈥� some people call it populism, but there are other names for it. If it wasn鈥檛 Trump, it would have been someone else. Third, I felt that the approaches I鈥檇 seen to explaining Trump鈥檚 success and then his failure were not very historic. There are instances of populism in the past that could shed light on this. 滨迟鈥檚 not just a recent thing.

People offer many different explanations for America鈥檚 political divides, but you write in the book that America is actually divided along economic lines. Can you explain this concept?

VM: There has always been a difference between less innovative and more innovative places. The more innovative places are areas like Silicon Valley or the North Carolina Research Triangle. These places are very technologically advanced in terms of clusters of universities, companies and other organizations that are really on the cutting edge of research and development and innovation. But these differences have always been a thing, since the very beginning of the republic. Right after colonialism, Boston, Philadelphia and New York City were like the Silicon Valleys of their day. That’s where a lot of the innovations around industrialization took place. But even though other places in the vicinity weren鈥檛 as technologically advanced, the gap between them in terms of their contributions to innovation and the country鈥檚 economic dynamism wasn鈥檛 as wide as it is today.

There have been populist movements throughout our history that nonetheless exploited that divide. For example, we talk in the book about , who was a populist at the turn of the 20th century. He was nominated three times by the Democratic Party and lost all three times. If you think about Bryan, a lot of that political movement was about how agriculture had been left behind by industrialization or rural areas had been forgotten. He didn鈥檛 make it explicit, but that was about the technology divide or what we call 鈥渋nnovation inequality鈥� in the book. Technological change was embedded in industrialization and some manufacturing centers got ahead while many rural areas fell behind.

What we think explains Trump phenomenon is that there’s been much more of a polarization economically between high-tech places, those that make big contributions to the globalized knowledge economy, and places that are more peripheral. 滨迟鈥檚 like comparing Silicon Valley to the agricultural regions of the Central Valley in California. There is just a very stark difference. It gets expressed socially or culturally as well, but the underlying roots are the economic and technological divide in terms of places鈥� differing contributions to innovation or cutting-edge industries.

What analysis do you offer in the book of Trump鈥檚 win in 2016 and loss in 2020?

VM: For 2016, we write about two sides. There is the negative side, where Trump was very antagonistic toward big tech, universities and the highly educated, skilled labor forces that are integral to those industries. One example is he spoke out against visas for skilled immigrants, so he burned bridges quickly with a lot of tech firms, tech workers and highly educated skilled workers in technologically advanced industries.

Then there is the other side of it. 滨迟鈥檚 not just aggravating the tech industry, it鈥檚 also appealing to folks that are not part of the knowledge economy by talking about things like coal, energy jobs, manufacturing or agriculture: industries that have probably not benefited as much from technological change. He鈥檚 speaking against big tech and appealing directly to folks who are not involved in those industries who might feel they were left behind.

What we find in 2020 is places that flipped from Trump to Biden were more technologically advanced areas 鈥� key counties that flipped in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona became more technologically advanced in terms of their integration to the global knowledge economy in the previous four years.

What stands out to you about this election cycle?

VM: In some senses, Republicans have narrowed the gulf with tech firms. Not all of them, but some, such as Elon Musk鈥檚 alliance with Trump or venture capitalists who disagree with President Joe Biden鈥檚 policies. This polarization has also been reduced in some ways by Trump and vice-presidential candidate JD Vance speaking to select tech firms or sectors such as cryptocurrency. 滨迟鈥檚 almost like they read our book and were like, 鈥淥h, maybe we can co-opt some of these folks.鈥�

On the other hand, I do think presidential nominee Kamala Harris鈥� policies are very much in line with President Biden鈥檚 and Hillary Clinton鈥檚 policies regarding technology and are part in parcel of a now decades long 鈥溾�� transition: pro-high-skilled labor, pro-high-skilled immigration, pro-education, a lot of investment in green energy and so on. The Democratic Party hasn’t really changed all that much, as much as they鈥檇 like to appeal to their older blue-collar roots. But the one place they have changed, or at least returned to these roots, I think since President Biden, is being pro-technology but also pro-manufacturing in ways they were forced to by Trump. For example, a lot of the is focused on building semiconductor plants in the U.S. I think Biden was reacting to Trump鈥檚 appeal in the blue wall states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

So, what I see in this election is lessons learned by both parties. Trump learned that he can鈥檛 alienate all of tech. The Democratic side is saying they can be pro-Silicon Valley and innovation while also splitting the difference and talking about bringing back manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt. In fact, at least in this regard the parties are less polarized than they were in either 2016 or 2020.

For more information, contact Menaldo at vmenaldo@uw.edu

stole the name of his new class 鈥� an irony that isn鈥檛 lost on him, considering the subject matter.

The name of the course, 鈥�,鈥� is a nod to 鈥�,鈥� a book that analyzes the methods the world鈥檚 despots use to stay in power. 滨迟鈥檚 required reading for the class, which Long designed and is teaching for the first time this quarter at the 天美影视传媒.

鈥淚 want to set up for students why democracy is worth stealing and why it鈥檚 worth it for some leaders to try to cheat in an election,鈥� said Long, a professor of political science. 鈥湵醭兮�檚 because the value for the people that win is so high and important. There are more elections today around the world than there have been at any point in human history, and yet there are still all these persistent threats to realizing the democratic gains from those elections. When they鈥檙e undermined or rigged, elections can make democracy a lot worse.鈥�

The course, which has no prerequisites and is open to any student at the UW, also highlights the types of politicians who try to steal elections, and how and what can be done to secure them. While Long took inspiration for the course鈥檚 name from the book and similar titles used by colleagues who have studied election fraud in the past, he swapped the word 鈥渞ig鈥� with a word invoked more often today in the United States.

鈥溾�� was a rallying cry for supporters of former president Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent Congress from certifying the election outcome. Trump has also tried to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2024 election, claiming that the only way he could lose is if his opponents cheat.

A from The Washington Post/University of Maryland found that 62% of U.S. adults believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, down from 69% in 2021. Just 31% of Republicans believe the election was legitimate.

But when it comes to election interference in the United States, Long said, reality doesn鈥檛 match Trump鈥檚 claims. Long pointed to the between Trump and Hillary Clinton, which was influenced in ways Long said the U.S. wasn鈥檛 prepared for, or even aware of at the time.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 have direct evidence that the vote totals were changed, but we do know there was Russian influence into states鈥� election management systems, as well as disinformation spread online seeking to sow chaos and confusion for voters,鈥� Long said. 鈥淒id that swing the election? We don’t know the answer to that. We know it was a close election. We know that it was targeted to persuade voters to move in the direction of Trump.鈥�

As for 2020, Long called it 鈥渢he most secure election in U.S. history鈥� because intelligence agencies worked to fix exposed weaknesses, particularly at the state level.

鈥淒epending on your political perspective, you might think it鈥檚 the other way around 鈥� that 2016 was free and fair and 2020 was the one that was rigged,鈥� Long said. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 no evidence that anything ran afoul in 2020. There are persistent threats, and they may become salient during certain election periods. U.S. elections are very secure in many ways, and we鈥檝e learned from the past, but there are all sorts of threats that remain.鈥�

One of those threats is the targeting of candidates, as evidenced by two recent attempts to assassinate Trump. While political violence isn鈥檛 new in the U.S. 鈥� past examples include the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Jr, as well as the shooting of Ronald Reagan 鈥� it鈥檚 been decades since tensions ran this high.

Long said these threats have come from Trump himself, who joked in 2016 about somebody assassinating Hillary Clinton, encouraged brawls at his rallies and has already impugned the integrity of the vote by refusing to confirm that he will concede if he loses in November.

鈥淭his doesn’t mean we won’t have a secure election, but it does mean that threats to election integrity certainly persist in the U.S.,鈥� Long said. 鈥淔or somebody like Trump to not only occupy the office of the presidency and commit alleged crimes for which he鈥檚 been indicted, but who also wants to occupy the office again to avoid that legal liability, that is something that a lot of countries have faced and puts the U.S. in kind of a global perspective.鈥�

Long has been working on issues of election fraud since the , which was marred by allegations of rigging. A doctoral student at the time, Long was observing his first election outside the U.S. He went on to create a class on global crime and corruption, but realized there was an opportunity for a second course focused on election fraud specifically.

Among other topics, Long鈥檚 newest class will cover the , which international monitors called neither free nor fair as Nicol谩s Maduro, the incumbent, controlled most institutions and repressed political opposition.

The problems that arose in Venezuela reminded Long of issues he saw in Kenya, which he then worked with colleagues to overcome during elections . The class will explore these kinds of connections between elections.

鈥淚 knew I wanted to teach this course during a U.S. election because I wanted it to be a U.S.-global perspective,鈥� Long said. 鈥淚t would be an American classroom with Americans and non-Americans there, but people would be thinking about the world together rather than just the United States. There are a lot of different historical and contemporary cases to discuss. There really are a lot of different ways to steal an election.鈥�

For more information, contact James Long at jdlong@uw.edu.

While social media platforms are rife with problems 鈥� from harassment to misinformation 鈥� many argue that the platforms also nurture political movements, such as the and .

But in her new book 鈥�,鈥� , a 天美影视传媒 doctoral student in the Information School, argues that social media may not have much political value. Focused on movements on the political left, Cross looks at how platforms like X and Facebook might bring attention to political causes, yet they do little to cultivate lasting change. 鈥淭he idea that tech is political,鈥� Cross writes, 鈥渟ometimes obscures the ways in which social media may be anti-political.鈥�

UW News spoke with Cross about the book and why people simply logging off 鈥� spending less time on social media platforms 鈥� may be the best solution.

Your core argument is that social media platforms are fundamentally 鈥渁nti-political.鈥� Can you explain what you mean by that and why that is?

Katherine Cross: A wave of techno-optimism washed over us in the mid-to-late 2000s, which coincided with the rise of and contemporary social media. These new platforms no longer siloed you in forums or chat rooms. Instead, you were suddenly able to sort of tap a digital microphone and speak to the whole world at once, with no barriers. That made crowdsourcing a reality. We started to see major, leaderless protests , . We saw people going out onto the streets, organized in many ways by simply reading social media posts. It seemed almost like magic, like we had bypassed the old power networks and hierarchies of governments and big businesses and unions. This seemed to change the course of history when movements like the Arab Spring protests toppled governments.

But many of my own experiences in online activism made me begin asking what happens next. As I followed up on a lot of these protests, after the cameras went away, there seemed to be little durable change. Yes, governments fell. But the next generation of rulers that stepped in were the same sort of oligarchs as before. Does anyone really believe that Egypt’s current president is substantially ideologically different from Hosni Mubarak?

That鈥檚 the unfortunate story of a lot of these internet-fired movements. #MeToo is another example 鈥� the changes were considerably less durable than we had hoped. Time and again, people fixate on moments of individual justice, and they hope that those episodes stand in for collective, structural changes that are more significant and durable. The prosecution of Harvey Weinstein, for instance, was a doubtlessly an accomplishment of the #MeToo movement. Yet .

Crowdsourcing on social media gives the illusion of collective action and power, but it lacks the ability to direct the mass of people towards any kind of sustainable collective goal. You might be able to change one person, but you cannot actually change the world because crowdsourcing is not sustainable organization, and it cannot direct political power.

Do you see the same anti-political patterns playing out in right-wing movements?

KC: I do. Social media compels a fixation on the symbolic, on the gestural, on points of language and aesthetics 鈥� things that are much easier to debate on social media than matters of greater substance. The things we see catch fire are less nuanced policy debates and more like the nonsense that flared up around accepting that very brief sponsorship from Bud Light. The unbelievable hate directed against her was in many ways readymade for social media, because it was purely gestural and aesthetic. 鈥淚 don’t like this person because she’s trans. Let’s debate whether she’s a woman, let’s debate whether she fits into Bud Light鈥檚 core demographic, and then let鈥檚 ruthlessly pile on to her and anyone who defends her and attack the company to demand 鈥� what?鈥� Something nebulous, some vibe.

If you want to attack and try to destroy a person, or to be bigoted against a community by singling out a member of that community for abuse, social media is your best ally in that cause. And yet, those on the right also have their own collectivist visions. Some of them dream of a new Reich or perhaps they dream of . But they’re not going to get those things through social media posting.

You argue also that the new, decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky aren’t a solution to this broken model that Twitter made popular. What problems do you see with the new platforms and their attempts to fix the trouble with Twitter?

KC: The problem with a platform like Mastodon is that Twitter’s culture persists 鈥� the callouts, the cliquishness, the harassment campaigns, the prejudice. There are some additional speed bumps in the way of harassment, for instance, but Mastodon really just replicates a lot of the drama-mongering that Twitter became infamous for. I was on a trans-woman-led Mastodon, and it became subject to a lot of vicious drama from outside that led to the destruction of the server.

Bluesky is even more like Twitter, because even though it can be decentralized into various servers, almost everyone is still on bluesky.social, the primary server. So the experience is very similar to the firehose of content that you got on Twitter. It does overall have less prejudice 鈥� far fewer Nazis, which is wonderful. Certain marginalized communities have built a new home there. People are now able to create their own servers. That should lead to the full decentralization of the platform, making it less vulnerable to, say, a billionaire takeover, which is all for the good.

But I don’t know that we are going to solve the bigger problems using anything that even remotely resembles a Web 2.0 platform. I’ve started posting less on Bluesky, because I realized I was going back to this old place where I’m angry all the time and starting arguments with people. Instead, I’ve started focusing on talking to the people that I’ve met there off the platform or just responding to the posts that I can be pleasant to. But social media is meant to lull you into acting almost automatically, so the fact that you still have to consciously resist indicates that not too much has changed here yet.

That brings us to the title of the book 鈥� 鈥淟og Off.鈥� Can you explain why you arrived at that prescription?

KC: Every time I鈥檝e felt my perspective shifting for the better, it has come from spending less time on social media and more time reimmersing myself in my community. I also recognized that those of us who were privileged enough to be able to work from home throughout much of the pandemic ended up spending even more time on social media 鈥� the effects of which were resolutely negative. I saw people go down these rabbit holes of political radicalization and paranoia. I thought, 鈥淚 know you in person, this isn’t you.鈥� But they鈥檇 migrated much of their social life onto a platform that rewards this new, more toxic, hair-trigger self.

In preliminary research for my dissertation, several public health experts have told me that Twitter polarized their profession during the pandemic along lines drawn by social media. Historically, their discourse would have been good-faith, behind-the-scenes disagreements about things like transmission mechanisms. But during the pandemic, some of these researchers gained huge followings, and suddenly they had to please people who were expecting them to take a side. That made it harder for those experts to tell the truth as they saw it, or to adapt what they were saying to new evidence. Public health experts hoped to use Twitter to hold a free, graduate-level seminar for the world. But instead, suddenly, there were massive camps of fandom in the general public with signs and slogans and half-baked understandings of the minutiae of those academic disputes. So Twitter beefs began getting litigated in the physical world at conferences and universities.

All of this made me think the most effective solution that an individual can take is to spend less time on social media. Ask yourself very seriously: 鈥淚f I’m trying to use the platform for some political purpose, will it help achieve my goal? And how?鈥� If you can’t answer that question, in the affirmative, with details, then you should log off and find a different approach.

Is there anything you want to add?

KC: Social media provides a lot of momentary, individual emotional satisfaction, and it’s easy to mistake that for politics. These platforms encourage that individualization. Yes, you are the product, as the cliche goes, but you’re also this solitary unit being served. When that happens, you start wanting to satisfy your emotional needs over everything else. A lot of internet discourse about politics is about venting, the desire to feel heard. It’s very therapeutic. But while that may have some value, in a limited sense, it is deeply antithetical to real politics, because politics is never truly about the individual: 滨迟鈥檚 about the collective, the polity. But social media鈥檚 prioritizing of individual emotion is anathema to real organizing.

For more information, contact kcross1@uw.edu.

In a speech to a group of religious broadcasters in February, to create a task force to counter 鈥渁nti-Christian bias,鈥� which he said would investigate the 鈥渄iscrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America.鈥�

滨迟鈥檚 Trump has claimed that Christians are being persecuted, and he鈥檚 not alone. As more politicians repeat these statements, researchers from the 天美影视传媒 investigated whether anti-Christian bias claims can also be used as a racial dog whistle to signal allyship with white Christian Americans.

A dog whistle is coded language used in political messaging to garner support from a particular group by indirectly communicating about race. For example, the phrase 鈥渨elfare queens” was first presidential campaign to refer to individuals perceived as abusing the welfare system. The term was disproportionately associated with Black, single mothers, allowing politicians to disparage a marginalized group without directly mentioning race.

The UW study, , showed that white and Black Christians perceived a politician concerned about anti-Christian bias as caring more about anti-white bias, being more willing to fight for white people and as less offensive than one concerned about anti-white bias. Black, but not white, Christians saw a politician distressed by anti-Christian bias as less likely to fight for Black people.

The researchers also found that reading about anti-Christian bias led white Christians 鈥� but not Black Christians 鈥� to perceive more anti-white bias. Together, these results suggest that talking about anti-Christian bias can provide a more palatable way for politicians to signal allegiance to white people.

To learn more, UW News spoke with corresponding authors , a UW associate professor of psychology and , a UW postdoctoral research fellow of psychology, about their work.

What interested you about this area of research?

Marah Al-Kire: Most previous research on racial dog whistles has focused on dog whistles that communicate Blackness, but there鈥檚 not much that looks at indirect language that can communicate whiteness. One line of Clara鈥檚 research focuses on how and why , like men who claim bias against men and white people who report anti-white bias. Especially in the current political climate, we were interested in whether these bias claims, such as talking about anti-Christian bias, were inadvertently communicating something about race.

For example, we saw Donald Trump use Christian symbolism during the George Floyd protests when he had a photo op holding a Bible, which was a signal of Christian nationalism. We know that Christian nationalism 鈥� the belief that the United States is and should be a Christian nation 鈥� is highly associated with racialized attitudes, even though the items we use to measure it make no direct mention of race. The connection between white and Christian in the United States is pervasive. If I was talking about anti-Christian bias, it also triggers perceptions of anti-white bias because people make an automatic connection between 鈥渨hite鈥� and 鈥淐hristian.鈥�

Clara Wilkins: If you look at which group most strongly endorses the ideas of Christian nationalism, . 滨迟鈥檚 not a thing among all Christians; it鈥檚 a subset. For example, showing that people who endorse Christian nationalism have negative attitudes toward immigrants and refugees, and our colleague Sam Perry finds a similar association with . So clearly, there is a connection between race and religion that hasn鈥檛 been explicitly studied.

One of the things that causes Christians to see themselves as victimized is perceived social change. We know that perceptions of bias against Christians have , and so have politicians鈥� claims of the need to protect religious freedom. There seems to be an implicit racialization of religion, where politicians are using claims of religious persecution as racial dog whistles.

Why does anti-Christian bias work particularly well as a racial dog whistle?

MA: One reason is how perceptions of Americanness are tied to race. that white people are seen as more American. But we鈥檙e also currently finding evidence to suggest that 鈥淐hristian鈥� is operating in the same way that 鈥渨hite鈥� is. If you think about the Christian symbols that you see, Jesus is portrayed as white even though realistically, that鈥檚 not what Jesus would look like. At a cultural level and with historical iconography, there is a tight connection between whiteness and Christianity. In the United States, there is also a deeply rooted history of white supremacy within Christianity.

CW: There are many examples of . For example, slave Bibles 鈥� Bibles created specifically for enslaved populations 鈥� excluded portions that talked about liberation, books like Exodus, and instead focused on submission to authority. Many Confederate generals were ministers. Christianity has played a central role in the rationalization of racial subjugation in the American context.

One thing we write about in the paper is the fact that the United States was founded on the premise of religious freedom. Protecting a core value sounds great, right? 滨迟鈥檚 a lot more acceptable than a politician saying that they鈥檙e really looking out for white people, but our research suggests that is what people hear.

The paper features several quotes from Donald Trump. Can you explain how politicians like Trump use anti-Christian bias claims to appeal to their base? What can voters watch for as we approach the 2024 elections?

MA: People should pause and think about what politicians are saying, like bias against Christians and Christian-related issues, and what people are actually hearing. We couldn鈥檛 demonstrate intent in the paper. We were just focusing on what people hear. Someone like former vice president Mike Pence, who is obviously very religious, is probably actually trying to talk about anti-Christian bias. But inadvertently, especially among white voters, he鈥檚 signaling a commitment to them as well. Our study shows that when you describe anti-Christian bias, white people perceive anti-white bias. Black people do not do that. But Black people still recognize that it鈥檚 a dog whistle. So even though Black people aren鈥檛 saying that anti-Christian bias means anti-white bias, they still assume that politicians are using it strategically. From a politician鈥檚 standpoint, if you鈥檙e trying to appeal to communities of color 鈥� and a lot of Black communities are highly Christian 鈥� you鈥檙e still inadvertently signaling a lower commitment to Black communities.

CW: We鈥檝e been working on this research for years, and the original draft of the paper didn鈥檛 open with Trump quotes. This is a pattern of increasing claims of anti-Christian bias that has been going on for a while and Trump just jumped on the bandwagon. That said, our research doesn鈥檛 speak to whether Trump understands these patterns, but I imagine one thing he does know is that , which I think is likely due to appointing three conservative Christians to the Supreme Court and overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump says he’s not racist, but he uses a lot of racist language. In our society, being called racist is basically one of the worst things you could be called, right? So how does a politician create a racial appeal without saying something like, 鈥淲hite people need to band together?鈥� That鈥檚 the extreme. Far right politicians can do that, but mainstream candidates can鈥檛. Our paper shows that a politician can communicate racial concern by claiming anti-Christian bias.

Other co-authors were Chad Miller, UW doctoral student of psychology; of the University of Oklahoma; and of the University of Illinois Chicago.

For more information, contact Wilkins at claraw@uw.edu and Al-Kire at ralkire@uw.edu.

天美影视传媒 political scientists and have spoken and written extensively about politics in emerging democracies and 鈥� usually those other than the United States 鈥� check the power of their leaders, present and past.

Former President Donald Trump鈥檚 recent indictment poses existential challenges for an otherwise mature democracy like the United States: What are citizens willing to accept from their presidents, even once they鈥檙e out of office?

Menaldo and Long, both faculty in the UW Department of Political Science and co-founders of the , talked with UW News about how they frame these issues not only for the media and the general public, but also for their students. The conversation was edited for clarity.

听

Q: Watergate and President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon have come up often in discussions of the Trump case. Does it make sense to compare them?

James Long: Regardless of what you think of Ford’s pardon, Nixon paid a price for his misdeeds: He had to resign and left office in disgrace, even if he was not then criminally prosecuted. At this point, Trump has not yet faced accountability, assuming he’s guilty at all, and in fact he could be rewarded through reelection, which was never possible for Nixon.

Then there鈥檚 a broader point on how you want to treat presidents when they’re in office or after. Pundits and lawyers say every citizen is equal under the eyes of the law. That may be true in principle, but at the same time a president is not like everybody else 鈥� they have certain duties to uphold. That doesn鈥檛 mean presidents should commit corrupt or criminal acts, but it does mean that they perform a different function than all other citizens.

We’ve put members of Congress, governors, city council members and all manner of politicians in jail. When people have been really concerned about a president’s actions and their legality, we have basically decided as a country, until now, that it’s not worth it: Reagan and George H.W. Bush on Iran-Contra; Bill Clinton and 鈥淟ewinsky-gate鈥�; George W. Bush for conduct in the war on terror. If what you care about is moving on, then you excuse the misdeeds, even possible crimes. You just hope that the person retires and you try to move on. The problem with Trump is that he wants to be president again.

Bad behavior on the part of previous presidents — when it鈥檚 been known 鈥� folks have decided to let it go in some broad sense. Now that’s changing. I think we’ve set a new precedent with Trump, and we have no idea what that means in the future.

听

Q: You鈥檝e written about other countries鈥� experiences, including those that have prosecuted leaders aggressively and those that have avoided it for various reasons. What are the issues that arise?

Victor Menaldo: Presidents are political animals by nature. They are called on to do things that are always potentially at the margin of illegality, especially around foreign policy, because in Jack Nicholson鈥檚 famous words: 鈥淎mericans simply can鈥檛 handle the truth.鈥� If you put presidents under a microscope, you will always find some basis for some kind of accusation.

So in response, there are two extremes: One is to put the microscope away and look the other way. The problem there is you incentivize bad behavior and end up with impunity. The second is to always use that microscope and magnify every little thing they do and encourage prosecutors to go after them with abandon. But if there鈥檚 an investigation every single time there is even the smallest iota of wrongdoing, then that’s going to create perverse consequences: A president will anticipate it, so they’re going to use their power to ward off prosecution or to stay in office so that they don’t see the jailhouse.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a good example. He was once a staunch defender of the judicial branch in Israel 鈥� a rather vanilla type of conservative. But when he started to get in legal trouble, especially in 2019 when he was sitting prime minister and indicted for fraud and bribery, he became more of a populist who attacked the other branches of government. He tried to get his supporters to help him legally by delegitimizing Israel’s democratic institutions, especially courts. In fact, he’s trying to do that now that he’s returned to power, and he鈥檚 mastered how to peddle conspiracy theories and radicalize and polarize the country to try to take the legal heat off.

The U.S. might start to look more like an Israel, Peru or Brazil, where it’s politically difficult not to go after leaders, and so both political parties may magnify that microscope and hyper-scrutinize everything leaders do. Then leaders may be tempted, like Netanyahu and Trump toward the end of his time in office, to undermine institutions and laws that threaten their freedom. This has been a recipe for eroding democracy, such as in Bolivia during Evo Morales鈥� presidency.

Q: How do you incorporate Trump in your teaching?

VM: Trump鈥檚 case has allowed me to focus on two tools democracy provides to uphold the rule of law and make sure politicians behave well. One involves how you sanction them and the other involves the leaders you select in the first place. The latter is usually more powerful because if democracy is constructed well, you’ll select the right type of leaders who don’t want to misbehave, whose strategy is to please the people in ways that are legal, and that strive to improve life for the majority of citizens, to leave the country better than they found it.

I think Trump showcases the failure of this screening tool. It’s not about electing angels but about selecting politicians who at least want to do right, even if it’s for self-interested reasons, such as improving their popularity or burnishing their legacy. 滨迟鈥檚 about rejecting leaders who aren’t going to press every advantage, look for every opportunity to politicize the law or cripple their opponents, or undermine institutions, to gain short-run advantages.

We have taken for granted in this country how much we rely on the screening tool so we can avoid turning to the sanctioning one. If you select bad leaders, then you are in trouble, because prosecutors may be beholden to them or, if they are not, a politician鈥檚 supporters are going to try to discredit attempts to hold them accountable. Good screening therefore beats imperfect punishment, and Trump makes it easier to teach this lesson.

JL: The interesting thing to teach about Trump to undergrads in my current class on global crime and corruption is not only about Trump, but about the American presidency: the two things that the framers of the Constitution thought about and in part, but only in part, gave us solutions to.

The framers were mindful of the fact that you can’t just take whatever criminal statute you have and always apply that to the president. You have to allow the president broader powers, and you also have to allow the fact that they may do something that’s not technically illegal but which is unbecoming of the office of the presidency and undermines their constitutional discharge. Therefore they should be removed from office in a way that is different than how a person may be thrown in jail if found guilty of a crime. So they wrote 鈥渉igh crimes and misdemeanors鈥� in the constitution as an impeachable offense, which any impeachment article would have to define.

Secondly, they gave Congress this duty. They understood the balance of power would constrain the executive. They saw what Oliver Cromwell had done in the brief period when England didn鈥檛 have a monarch and they had their own revolution against King George. So they were fearful of a lawless executive and so part of Congress’ job is to limit presidential abuse of office.

But something the framers worried about but didn鈥檛 have a great solution to was how to avoid partisan interests in Congress that could undermine its impeachment powers. If people care more about being Democrats and Republicans than they do about asserting Congress鈥� role to stop an unruly president, or avoid overzealous and frivolous investigations, then the fact that this is Congress’ Constitutional prerogative doesn’t matter.

One thing the framers wouldn鈥檛 have anticipated is that the executive branch has essentially declared itself above the law. During the Nixon Administration, the Justice Department鈥檚 Office of Legal Counsel’s decision said that no sitting president can be criminally charged. This was upheld during the Clinton administration and formed the basis of Robert Mueller鈥檚 鈥渄eclination鈥� to prosecute Trump. To be clear, this is the executive branch, under the DOJ, providing legal and political cover to the head of that branch, the president, to do whatever they want. That鈥檚 the standard that we have right now 鈥� although the OLC opinion has not been tested in court, it throws the matter of a lawless president back to Congress.

Although Nixon never went through the impeachment process, it’s well documented that he resigned when Republican senators came to him and said he would not have the votes to survive conviction; and what about congressional Democrats and Republicans during Clinton鈥檚 impeachment and Senate trial, and both of Trump鈥檚? Are these all examples of Congress performing the function the framers invested them with, shirking responsibility or something else entirely?

For my students, thinking about dilemmas the framers considered and the solutions they provided, but also how in various ways those solutions have been perhaps undermined, is profoundly fascinating and interesting.

Against the backdrop of a longtime conflict among Western states over water in the Colorado River Basin, the U.S. Supreme Court on March 20 will take up the case of another significant 鈥� but often overlooked 鈥� claimant: the Navajo Nation.

The case, , pits the treaty rights of the largest Native American reservation in the United States against water-rights claims by the state in which much of the reservation is located.

, professor of law at the 天美影视传媒 and director of the UW鈥檚 Native American Law Center, co-authored an on behalf of 37 tribal nations, the Affiliated Tribes of the Northwest, the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority and the National Congress of American Indians.

The brief, which Mills co-wrote with attorneys for the Native American Rights Fund and faculty from the University of Arizona and the University of Idaho, hinges on the Winters Doctrine, a 1908 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that recognized that the establishment of a tribal reservation also reserved water necessary to fulfill the purposes of that reservation 鈥� even if water rights were not explicitly mentioned in the treaty.

鈥淏ased on Winters, tribal nations have legal rights to water for their homelands, with a priority date of the creation of the reservation, which often means that tribal rights are quite senior compared to those of other water users,鈥� Mills said. 鈥淎lthough the development of water resources and infrastructure across the West throughout the 1900s often overlooked or ignored tribal rights,听the assertion of Winters rights by tribes (and the U.S. on tribes’ behalf) over the听last half-century has helped resolve uncertainties based on the existence of those rights while ensuring many tribes could secure water for actual use, so-called 鈥榳et鈥� water rights, in addition the 鈥榩aper鈥� rights guaranteed by the Winters 顿辞肠迟谤颈苍别.鈥�

Mills discussed the current case with UW News.

听

Q: States in the Colorado River Basin have been grappling with water supply and their own competing demands. How does this case fit into that context?

Monte Mills: The current conflict over water in the Colorado River Basin is the result of dwindling supply and the historical establishment of rights to water that overestimated the amount of water that might be available. Like the many other tribal nations in the Basin, the water rights of the Navajo Nation were largely overlooked in those negotiations and, therefore, rights were allocated among the Basin states with little thought given to the rights that the tribes would need. While other tribal rights in the Basin have been identified and resolved, the Navajo Nation continues to seek protection for its legal rights to water, particularly in the current era of scarcity. This case is part of those efforts.

Q: While this case specifically involves the Navajo Nation, there are implications for other tribes, as well. Please explain.

MM: The core of the Nation’s claim is that the United States has a duty to identify and protect the Nation’s as-yet unquantified and unadjudicated rights to water in the Colorado River Basin. That claim is rooted in the centuries-old recognition that 鈥� based on treaties, rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, and acts of Congress 鈥� the United States has a trust relationship with tribal nations. Over the course of the evolution of federal Indian law, that trust relationship has come to define the federal-tribal relationship and is a critical component of the modern era of tribal self-determination. Here, the Navajo Nation is seeking to enforce those trust duties by asking a court to order the United States to take certain steps to protect the Nation’s rights to water.

While the facts and context of this case are unique to the Navajo Nation, a decision by the Supreme Court in this case could help inform the scope and enforceability of the Indian trust doctrine.听听

Q: A series of court rulings, as well as statements and policies by presidential administrations of both parties, have referenced the importance of treaty obligations. Is there reason to believe this time is different?

MM: It is hard to overstate the importance of treaties and the promises made therein, both to tribal nations and the United States. Those time-honored agreements are the backbone of federal Indian law and have been the basis on which the federal government has identified and fulfilled its duties to tribes. In addition, treaties provide a critical, quasi-constitutional connection between tribal sovereigns and their federal and state counterparts by providing a consensual basis on which tribal governments can base their intergovernmental relationships. It is no wonder, therefore, that the U.S. Constitution confirms that treaties are the “supreme law of the land,” and that the U.S. Supreme Court has established specific rules guiding the interpretation and enforcement of treaty promises.

Like many other tribal claimants before them, the Navajo Nation is asking the federal judiciary to interpret and enforce the terms of its historical agreements with the United States in accordance with those rules and standards. But,听notwithstanding their importance, treaty obligations have often been set aside, ignored, overlooked, or outright abrogated by the United States, often in deference to other, non-tribal interests.

This case presents yet another opportunity for the United States Supreme Court to weigh the word and bond of the United States, pledged in treaties with the Navajo Nation, along with the rights and duties that flow from those guarantees, in light of their place in the Constitution, the Court’s precedent, and the competing claims and interpretations offered by those countering the Navajo Nation’s position.

For more information, contact Mills at mtmills@uw.edu.

More than 40,000 property deeds containing racially discriminatory language have been uncovered in Western Washington by the , and director and his team aren鈥檛 finished yet.

In 2021, the Washington State Legislature authorized the project to find and map neighborhoods where property deeds contained racial covenants. No longer legally enforced, racial covenants prevented certain groups of people, usually Black people, from buying or occupying property. This created segregated cities that reserved desirable areas for white people.

Gregory, professor of history at the 天美影视传媒, oversees a research team at the UW that handles counties in Western Washington. , professor of history at Eastern Washington University, leads a group that researches the eastern side of the state.

Mostly due to the work of students and nearly 800 volunteers, Gregory鈥檚 team has so far identified documents in several counties, including King, Pierce, Snohomish, Whatcom and Thurston. are available on the project鈥檚 website. Some counties aren鈥檛 finished; others haven鈥檛 been started.

鈥淭his has become such a community venture,鈥� Gregory said. 鈥淚t goes to show how the 天美影视传媒 serves the broader community. So much of what we are thought of doing is just academic work that鈥檚 really abstract. This is a service project basically for the people of Washington state.鈥�

On-site volunteers are increasingly necessary for the project because several counties, including King, don鈥檛 have the digital records that allow for a quick search of relevant terms. Examining physical books or microfilm is a more time-consuming process. For months, the project team has been removing batches of reels from the King County archives and reading them in the Suzzallo Library on the UW鈥檚 Seattle campus.

The effort was authorized and funded in 2021 by the Washington State Legislature under , which addresses the presence of the covenants and gives property owners and residents options for legally removing the language from their deeds. Gregory plans to ask for renewed funding to continue the effort and purchase a high-speed scanner to digitize property records and speed up the rest of the work.

鈥淲e鈥檙e roughly halfway there,鈥� Gregory said, 鈥渁nd I hope the legislature agrees that we should continue.鈥�

Nicholas Boren, a UW junior who is majoring in informatics, develops and manages computer programs that use text recognition to automatically search for racial restrictions in those property records that have been digitized. Then Zooniverse, a citizen science web portal, allows volunteers to double-check documents flagged by Boren鈥檚 algorithm.

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 think of software, artificial intelligence and machine learning as being used to help people,鈥� Boren said. 鈥淏ut engineers should be thinking about the choices they make and how software can be actively used for good.鈥�

Along with reviewing documents, the project also prioritizes community outreach. Students often present to community and church groups. Recently, students spoke with the Mercer Island City Council in a Zoom meeting that was attended by more than 300 residents. Several cities in King County had their diversity, equity and inclusion staff members complete training and volunteer with the project, Gregory said.

Recently, about 20 lawyers and staff from the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and real estate company Redfin volunteered at Suzzallo Library. After several students gave a presentation on the history of racial restrictions, the lawyers helped read King County deeds and identify restrictions.

UW seniors Erin Miller, who is majoring in law, societies and justice with a minor in informatics, and Samantha Cutts, a history and international studies major, are both involved with research, data management and community outreach. They agreed the project has been an eye-opening experience

鈥湵醭兮�檚 a learning process for me, as much as it is for the people I鈥檓 teaching,鈥� said Miller, who got involved after writing a paper for one of Gregory鈥檚 classes on the dichotomy of her identity as a half-Black, mixed-race woman. 鈥淚鈥檓 being educated about things that have impacted my life, my ancestors and the way my family settled in Washington state.

鈥淚n our presentations, we talk about how we often assume that segregation and discrimination happened in the South and weren鈥檛 necessarily part of the Pacific Northwest. But they were. 滨迟鈥檚 happening in a lot of our backyards, and we don鈥檛 even know it. One of the most gratifying things is being able to educate people that these things exist.鈥�

The documents uncovered by the project force people to face their history and reckon with systemic racism, Cutts said.

鈥淎s a Jewish individual, I know there is a long history of oppression of Jewish people,鈥� Cutts said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen restrictions that specifically prevent Jewish people from living in certain areas. Through working on this project, I confronted my interactions with the history of ethnic and racial discrimination to see how direct it really was.鈥�

##

For more information, contact Gregory at gregoryj@uw.edu and the project team at wacovenants@gmail.com.

When schools closed during the first year of the pandemic, an immediate and potentially devastating problem surfaced: How would millions of children in struggling families get the school meals many of them depended on?

The U.S. Congress responded by authorizing the Department of Agriculture to roll out two major programs. It launched the 鈥済rab and go school meals,鈥� which helped schools provide prepared meals for off-site consumption and distributed funding for the state-operated Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) program, which gave parents debit cards so they could purchase groceries from food retailers.

A new study led by the Harvard and 天美影视传媒 schools of public health found that the programs reached more than 30 million children and either directly provided meals or, through the P-EBT program, cash for nearly 1.5 billion meals a month in 2020.

In the new study , the researchers found:

• The P-EBT program reached 26.9 million of the 30 million children whose families qualified because of low income at a cost of $6.46 per meal, providing access to 1.1 billion meals a month.
• The grab-and-go program reached 8 million children not eligible for P-EBT at a cost of $8.07 per meal, providing 429 million meals a month.

鈥淲hen schools had to close across the country during the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, kids all of a sudden lost access to school lunches and breakfasts. From a public health and nutrition security听perspective, this was an urgent concern, given that these meals are critical for students at risk of food insecurity and are also an essential source of nutrition for millions of children,鈥� said , study lead author and assistant professor of public health nutrition at Harvard.

Kenney said when these programs began, no one really knew how effectively they would reach kids who needed them and at what cost per meal. So the researchers set out to try to answer how these two major policy responses to the loss of regular school meal access worked.

鈥淭his study suggests that, in many states, P-EBT can reach the most eligible children at relatively low cost to the government, while a meal distribution model such as grab-and-go school meals can also ensure families directly receive meals and reach children beyond those who are P-EBT-eligible,鈥� said , senior author and clinical professor of health systems and population health in the UW School of Public Health.

Now, Krieger said, extensions of these two key projects are being debated in Congress. On July 27, the House Education and Labor Committee sent its 2022 Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill (H.R. 8450), the 鈥�“鈥痶o the House floor.

In the following Q&A, Krieger and Kenney discuss what their findings mean for this or similar policy.

What would the new 鈥渒ids act鈥� do?

Krieger: The act proposes a comprehensive, science-driven reauthorization of federal child nutrition programs that meets the needs of children and families. It includes many familiar and essential programs, such as school meals and the WIC program. It would address food insecurity among children during the summer, when schools are closed, by significantly expanding access to summer meals and creating a nationwide Summer-EBT program. The Summer-EBT program would operate similarly to P-EBT in many ways and provide $75 per month per household on an electronic debit card. It supports school efforts to increase access to summer meals using methods that worked in the grab-and-go school meals program during COVID school closures.

Based on your findings, what should Congress do for kids?

Krieger: Our study offers evidence that these components of the proposed act 鈥� an EBT program to distribute the value of school meals, similar to the proposed summer-EBT program, combined with expanded distribution of meals in the community, similar to the expanded summer meals program鈥� were effective in feeding millions of children when schools were closed due to COVID and suggests that they will also likely be effective in delivering food to children during school summer recess. Including both programs in the act would help to assure food access when schools are closed during summer breaks.

Kenney: An important takeaway from our study that may be relevant for the conversation about the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act is that these should be considered together, as a two-pronged strategy. The two approaches complement one another: P-EBT can help make sure that at least the cash value of those missed meals can get out to low-income families efficiently, and grab-and-go meals can ensure that families who may be struggling but may not have a low-enough income to qualify for P-EBT can still get meals. They can also ensure that families who may have more difficulty preparing food 鈥� like families experiencing homelessness or with limited kitchen facilities, or even just with limited time 鈥� can access nutritionally adequate meals.

What else should Congress consider?

Krieger: The federal government should be investigating strategies for optimizing the cost-effectiveness of grab-and-go school meals. It should also expand the P-EBT program or its equivalent to cover 60 meals per month instead of 40 to match the grab-and-go school meals benefit level. And, it should work to optimize the nutritional quality of the foods provided.

Co-authors include Lina Pinero Walkinshaw and Jessica Jones-Smith, UW Department of Health Systems and Population Health; Ye Shen and Sara Bleich, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Sheila E. Fleischhacker of the Georgetown University Law Center. This research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

###

For more information, contact Kenney at ekenney@hsph.harvard.edu or Krieger at jkrieger@hfamerica.org.