The Prevalence of Violence, Disinformation, Radicalization and Epistemic Anarchy in Politics in 2024

In the aftermath of a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and in the wake of the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump in which Harris sought to make Trump's tendency to be "be confused about fact" a central issue in this campaign, this week's class discusses what transformations in our media system are doing to norms surrounding political civility and violence as well as what our growing incapacity to maintain a common conception of truth or reality does to our penchant for polarization.