People turning out to recent marches in Washington, DC on climate and other issues are 1) overwhelmingly people who voted for Hillary Clinton, 2) well-educated, 3) 25-30% first-time protesters, 4) broadly motivated in response to the Trump administration, but 5) increasingly diverse in their specific reasons for marching (racial justice, the environment, women's rights, etc.), and 6) continuing to show up to multiple marches. Those are the initial conclusions from sociologist Dana Fisher, who has been surveying march attendees at DC marches since the November election.

When Kentucky’s leaders failed to do their job of writing a state implementation plan for the Clean Power Plan (CPP), Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) realized that this was actually an opportunity to bring together residents from all over the state to share their vision for what Kentucky’s energy future could look like, generating shared, aspirational political will for a new economy powered by clean energy.

Political parties influence how people engage with the political world, shaping their political preferences, beliefs, and behaviors. Using motivated reasoning as a theoretical lens, the authors argue that a person’s political party affiliation (in particular the idea that partisanship becomes an identity unto itself) can dominate how certain people interact with and process information.