Democracy Talks

Spring 2026

Gaslighting

• “That’s crazy”
• “Don’t be so sensitive”
• “It doesn’t mean anything”
• “I was just joking!”
• “You’re overreacting”

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Source: WikiCommons

Kate Abramson’s Definition

Gaslighting is…a form of emotional manipulation in which the gaslighter tries (consciously or not) to induce in another not only the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories, and/or beliefs are so utterly without grounds as to qualify as “crazy,” but also the sense that she isn’t capable of forming apt beliefs, perceptions, reactions, and so on.

(2024: 13-14)

Abramson’s Definition Cont.

Furthermore, the gaslighter aims to make it the case that the target’s sense of herself in these respects is, in some sense, tracking a reality.

(2024: 14)

Some Interdisciplinary Questions About Gaslighting

• How common is gaslighting?
• Are women the most common targets?
• Does race or class matter with respect to who most commonly experiences gaslighting?
• What should we do to stop gaslighting?

• Is there such a thing as structural gaslighting, where the gaslighter is not an individual agent but a social structure, like a criminal legal system or a healthcare system?

Are we still in the era of color-blind racism and dog whistle politics?

Dr. Aisha Upton Azzam

Department of Sociology

Color-blind racism

• Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2003) Racism Without Racists
• “New racism” that emerged in the post-civil rights era
• No longer socially acceptable whites to say the n-word or declare themselves staunch segregationists

Color-blind racism

• Using “equal opportunity” to speak against affirmative action and DEI programs
• Asserting that there is just something culturally wrong with racial and ethnic minorities that precludes them from succeeding
• Arguing that housing segregation in natural because people just want to live with folks who are like them
• Minimizing racism by asserting that we are better now than in the past
• The charge of reverse raciam when called out.

Dog whistle politics

• How color-blind racism shows up in politics
• The use of coded language as a political strategy to say racist things and speak to racist constituents while being able to deny claims of racism
• Became a prominent part of political strategy - especially in Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”

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Lee Atwater on dog whistle politics in the Southern Strategy

You start out in 1954 saying “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968, you can’t say “nigger” – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all of that stuff and you’re getting so abstract. Now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all of these things your talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, Blacks get hurt worse than whites…We want to cut this, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

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In our contemporary moment

• Trump following Unite the Right Rally: “There are very fine people on both sides”
• Trump referring to Somali Immigrants and politicians like Ilhan Omar and Jasmine Crockett as “Low IQ people”
• Charlie Kirk stating “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people” and that Black women like Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action hires who “lack brain processing power” and stole jobs from white people.
• Laura Loomer stating, “It hurts my heart that we have ghetto Black bitches who hate America serving in Congress”

Are we still in a color-blind era?

Inflation in 2024

Elections are never decided by one factor alone, but inflation is one factor that helped Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election

In surveys prior to the election, inflation was typically the most commonly cited concern on voters' minds. Most voters also thought Trump would do a better job than Harris at bringing prices down. (Goudreau, 2024)

Exit polls from CBS News showed 75% of voters reported that inflation had caused moderate or severe hardship for them over the past year, with 45% saying they were worse off now than they were four years ago. (Goudreau, 2024)

https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-average-price-data.htm

Inflation in 2026

The war in Iran and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran have rocked the global economy. Oil and gasoline prices have soared, fertilizer costs have spiked and markets have plummeted.

Democrats are looking to capitalize on the spike by pinning it on Trump’s decision to go to war.

Republicans are choosing their words to downplay economic forecasts of higher prices for the fuel and fertilizer needed to produce and ship the food voters eat.

Voter turnout and Socioeconomics

The overall turnout of eligible voters in the 2024 general election was 63.7%. This was lower than the 2020 record of 66.6% but higher than every other election year since at least 2004.

• Shields and Goidel (1997) - Using data from the 1960s to 1990s found decades of class bias when it came to voter turnout.
• Filer, Kenny and Morton (1993)- Using data from 1948 to 1972 discovered that turn out seems to increase as an individual’s income grows
• Staples (2022) - Using 2020 data saw a trend of lower income voters not turning out in the numbers that voter who lived in the wealthier ZIP codes did in Nashville.

Data Manipulation

Winston Churchill is said to have quipped: “I only believe in statistics that I have doctored myself”.

European countries, such as Greece and Italy, have been accused of falsifying the size of their budget deficit and government debt in the context of entering the Euro system.

According to The Economist (2022d), “in late June a group of researchers put inflation in Turkey at 160%, double the official rate of 79%. A survey showed that seven out of ten Turks believed that group's figures rather than the government's."

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Dangerous for Democracy: Deregulation, Media Monopolies, and the Urgency of Engaged Audiences

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Margret McCue-Enser, Ph.D.

Professor of Communication Studies

Sister Alberta Huber Endowed Chair for the Liberal Arts

Federal Communications Commission

regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. A U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the commission is the United States' primary authority for communications law, regulation and technological innovation.

• Promoting competition, innovation and investment in broadband services and facilities
• Supporting the nation's economy by ensuring an appropriate competitive framework for the unfolding of the communications revolution
• Encouraging the highest and best use of spectrum domestically and internationally
• Revising media regulations so that new technologies flourish alongside diversity and localism
• Providing leadership in strengthening the defense of the nation's communications infrastructure

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Deregulation and Media Monopolies:

1996 Telecommunications Act

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Deregulation Landslide and Democracy’s Decline: 1996, 2003, 2011

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Demanding Good Reasons: Rhetoric and the Need for Engaged Audiences

Rhetoric - the faculty of discerning the available means of persuasion Aristotle

Modes of Proof:

Ethos - speaker’s character, competence, charisma

Pathos - emotion

Logos - evidence, reasoning

Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, Harvard University Press, 1975.

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Democracy Talk - When Private Information is Public:

Palantir, DHS, and the New Surveillance State

Anthony Molaro, Ph.D., Information Management Department/MLIS Program, Saint Catherine University

Who Shapes Health Information?

Who We Listen To Matters

Retreived from: https://magazine.byu.edu/article/lessons-in-listening/

How We Show Up Matters