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As the impeachment inquiry heats up, members of Congress and the media are left with the difficult job of untangling the conspiracy theory that seems to have driven the president’s actions in Ukraine: a wild tale of a missing computer server whisked off to Eastern Europe for nefarious, if never entirely clear, purposes, and something involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter and, for good measure, China, too.

Seeing the full ideological array of conspiratorial thinking and understanding its deep history are essential to understanding how paranoid thinking about Russian conspiracies, which so troubled the McCarthyites in the 1950s and 1960s, could jump from right to left in the wake of the 2016 election.

Republican fears of power’s expansionist tendencies spurred the revolutionary generation to regard British taxation after 1763 as not simply a deviation from prior norms, but as the first step on a swift descent toward political enslavement. American revolutionaries were not simply whiny about taxes; they were paranoid.

In our combined years of experience helping people talk about difficult political issues from abortion to guns to race, we’ve found most can converse productively without sacrificing their beliefs or spoiling dinner

It’s not merely possible to preserve your relationships while talking with folks you disagree with, but engaging respectfully will actually make you a more powerful advocate for the causes you care about.

The key to persuasive political dialogue is creating a safe and welcoming space for diverse views with a compassionate spirit, active listening and personal storytelling

There is madness in Rudolph W. Giuliani’s incoherence on behalf of President Trump, but there is also method. He’s following the Trump playbook: Confuse, distract, provoke and flood the zone with factoids and truthiness until nobody can be sure what’s real and what’s not.

Giuliani is obfuscating, not clarifying. He’s making it harder to know even what the president claims, let alone what the truth might be. As a legal strategy, this would be insane. But it’s really a political strategy.

Congress poses the only serious threat to Trump, in the form of impeachment. If the president’s loyal base can be flimflammed into thinking this is all a big witch hunt, Republican lawmakers will stay in line. At least for now.

For my own writing, I have settled on a method of writing and rewriting in which I seek to improve places where I use imprecise categories and labels, where I slide over gaps in my knowledge with vague phrases, where my ignorance leads to false statements. I find and fix many such places in the process of revising. I hope to produce writing which is as close as possible to being objective and true.

That I have such goals indicates that I do not accept the idea that there is no truth. I do believe that truth is very hard to reach, that nearly every proposition in history or science can be improved by more work, that we are imperfect seekers of truth. So we can approach truth, but perhaps never reach it.

I was prompted to write this because of the great irony that the political conservatism, which once argued for objective truth, now relies on the broadest attack on truth that we have ever experienced.

After the insurrection, the impeachment, the trial and ongoing partisanship in 2021, many Americans are looking to civics education as a source of hope, according to George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy, which reports that “Nearly all Americans (97%) agree that public schools should be teaching civics.”

But my research shows that states that require civics courses do not necessarily have better test scores, more youth voting or young people volunteering at higher rates than other states. And there may be a connection to QAnon support as well.

Unfortunately, though, my research has found that civics education isn’t making the grade. In states that require students to take a civics course, young voters have slightly lower average voting rates – 29.9% – than states without such a requirement – 31.9%.

Military Joint Chiefs condemn 'sedition and insurrection' at US Capitol as federal and local officials scramble to ensure security

America's most senior military leaders condemned the violent invasion of the US Capitol last week and reminded service members of their obligation to support and defend the Constitution and reject extremism

President Donald Trump's supporters.

Biden receives second dose of coronavirus vaccine on camera

Joe Biden

received the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccin

They focused on blaming President Donald Trump and the appropriate way to hold him alone accountable.

But many, citing the President's speech during his "Save America Rally" moments before the riot began, claimed there was no evidence of incitement and that the President was just doing his patriotic duty by encouraging his supporters to use their voices.

While Democrats were rightly enraged by the actions of the President at the rally just before the march on the Capitol, each speaker should have spent more of their limited time at the podium to remind their colleagues and the American public of the lie that sparked this fire.

Trump will hold a farewell ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, the usual jumping off point for Air Force One located in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C., before his final departure from the capital city, the sources said.

Details of that ceremony are still under consideration, according to sources, but may include a color guard and 21-gun salute.

Trump had already announced he would skip Biden’s inauguration, breaking with more than a century of tradition.

only 29% of Americans said they approve of how Trump is handling his job – the lowest of his tumultuous presidency and down 9 percentage points from August. Sixty-eight percent said they disapprove of his job performance.

– surveyed 5,360 U.S. adults, including 4,040 who said they voted in the presidential election.

Biden, conversely, will begin his presidency with 64% of Americans expressing a positive opinion of his conduct since winning the election, according to the Pew Research poll.

On Saturday, former President George W. Bush released a short, heartfelt video offering words of support for a nation rocked by a staggering loss of lives and livelihoods during the coronavirus pandemic. In less than three minutes, a somber-voiced Bush expressed gratitude to the nation's medical professionals, called on Americans to protect their neighbors by keeping their distance from them and urged us to show empathy and kindness to all.

Come Sunday morning, President Donald Trump shared his view on the video in which he, true to form, made it all about himself and his grievances.

True, Trump has expressed some concern for the suffering of our fellow Americans and their loved ones -- but at callously low levels.

Chief Justice John Roberts — who’s on the verge of an extraordinarily high-profile balancing act presiding over the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump — issued a warning on Tuesday about the dangers of misinformation in the internet era.

“In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital,” Roberts declared

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

But none of the other four deaths were at the hands of the protesters: the only other person killed with deliberate violence was a pro-Trump protester, Ashli Babbitt, unarmed when shot in the neck by a police officer at close range. The other three deaths were all pro-Trump protesters: Kevin Greeson, who died of a heart attack outside the Capitol; Benjamin Philips, 50, “the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo,” who died of a stroke that day; and Rosanne Boyland, a fanatical Trump supporter whom the Times says was inadvertently “killed in a crush of fellow rioters during their attempt to fight through a police line.”

Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories.

Social media has weakened all three.

gradually, social-media users became more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers and corporations. As I wrote in a 2019 Atlantic article with Tobias Rose-Stockwell, they became more adept at putting on performances and managing their personal brand—activities that might impress others but that do not deepen friendships in the way that a private phone conversation will.