Understanding Trump's America

Description

Associated Program:
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum
Speakers:
Daniel Allott
Jordan Allott
Co-Sponsors:
Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy

Daniel Allott
Deputy Commentary Editor, The Washington Examiner
Jordan Allott
Documentary Filmmaker
Founder, In Altum Productions
Tyler Bridges
Award-winning journalist and author
2017 Joan Shorenstein Fellow, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, HKS

Daniel Allott, Deputy Commentary Editor at The Washington Examiner, and Jordan Allott, documentary filmmaker and founder of In Altum Productions, addressed the forum in an event moderated by Tyler Bridges, an award-winning journalist and author. Daniel and Jordan Allott spoke about their project, The Race to 2020, and the importance of documenting the views and roles of ordinary citizens in the election of 2016. With America’s political polarization on the rise, Daniel and Jordan Allott seek to understand what led to the outcome of the 2016 election in a longitudinal study of nine counties key to the election of Donald Trump. Almost a year into their project, the Allott brothers have found that two common reasons for people having voted Trump on the 2016 ballot were hope and change-for a variety of reasons ranging from a resurgence of American values to a strong economy to a transformation from the traditional Washington establishment.

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A real time look at the road to the 2020 election by Daniel and Jordan Allott.  The Allott brothers will follow 9 key counties over the course of Trump’s presidency, traveling among them and keeping in touch and corresponding with the people they meet.

The Race To 2020 will present more than a snapshot in time. It will chronicle how people’s lives and views change as Trump’s presidency unfolds, and provide a rich and unique account of President Trump’s first term in office.

Speaker Bios

Daniel Allott

Before embarking on The Race To 2020 project, Daniel Allott was the Washington Examiner’s deputy commentary editor. Before joining the Examiner in 2015, he worked as a freelance writer and contributor to Investor’s Business Daily’s Leaders and Success page. He was also a senior writer at American Values, a Washington, D.C. based public policy organization.

Daniel has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico, USA Today, National Review and dozens of other publications. He has also edited several books. He’s a former National Review Institute Washington Fellow. Daniel is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison and Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. He was born in Reading, England and has lived in England, New York, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Spain, and Washington, D.C.

Jordan Allott

Jordan Allott is a documentary filmmaker, founder of In Altum Productions and media advisor to In Defense of Christians. Jordan has filmed projects in over 25 countries, from China and Syria to Nigeria and Cuba, with themes ranging from international human rights and American politics to Catholic spirituality.

In 2009-10, Jordan went into Cuba to film a documentary about Dr. Oscar Biscet, a Castro dissident and human rights advocate. Oscar’s Cuba screened across Europe, the U.S. and South America.  More recently, Jordan’s international human rights work has focused on the Middle East, with many trips to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. His latest film, Our Last Stand, highlights the heroic struggle of Christians to survive in their ancestral homeland of Syria and Iraq. The film has screened across the world, including events at the parliaments of four European countries.

Jordan and his work have been seen on Fox News, EWTN News and CNN International, and he has co-produced projects with the George W. Bush Institute, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S State Department, among others. Jordan has also written opinion pieces for National Review and the Weekly Standard, and he is a 2012 National Review Institute Washington D.C. Fellow. Jordan was born in Reading, England, received a B.A. in Political Science, Philosophy and Film from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and resides in McLean, Virginia.

Tyler Bridges

Tyler Bridges, twice a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, is a freelance journalist based in New Orleans who reports on Louisiana politics for the Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate, and also The Washington Post and Politico Weekly. He is the author of three books on Louisiana politics (the most recent, published in December 2016, is Long Shot), a 2011-12 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and was awarded Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Award in 2010 for his 10 years of foreign reporting in South America. While at the Shorenstein Center, Bridges will write about the role of conservative bloggers in debunking mainstream news stories.