Experts in the News | Miller Center

UVA Miller Center discusses historic moment for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris

Dr. Barbara Perry, director of presidential students at UVA Miller Center, said this is a milestone for the country. "For women, and it should be for men everywhere in the world, this is such a milestone, but such a long time in the United States getting to this point," she said.

Barbara Perry

Trump continues to defy election results as world and some in GOP begin to move on

“The pandemic and resulting economic catastrophe that produced Trump’s defeat now require him to relinquish power as all 44 presidents before him have done,” said Barbara Perry. “Yet the anti-democratic, demagogic traits that paved his way to the Oval Office will now simply not allow him to ‘stand down’ in the tradition of every president from George Washington to Barack Obama.”

Barbara Perry

Vice President-elect Harris’ win brings many historic firsts

Kamala Harris gave her victory speech wearing all white on Saturday night after her glass ceiling-shattering win as Vice President-elect. Barbara Perry, Director of Presidential Studies and co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the historic nature of Harris’ election and the road it took to get here.

Barbara Perry

Donald Trump may go away, but Trumpism will be here for a while

Some of what Trump’s followers saw in him was “a willingness to release all of the -isms that they have felt that they had to repress: racism, sexism and xenophobia,” said Jennifer Lawless, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia. “I’m not saying that all of the people who support Trump are racist or sexist. But he taps into this anti-liberalism and anti-elitism, particularly toward people who live on both coasts,” Lawless said.
“There are 70 million Americas who voted for Donald Trump, and they’re not holding their noses,” Lawless said. “Trumpism is not going away.”

Jennifer Lawless

Elections

It is not that close. This does not have to be a political crisis.

We have just completed a narrow, hard fought election. Given the ongoing economic crisis and pandemic, the country should begin the peaceful transfer of power.

Miller Center

Melody Barnes on presidential transitions

Melody Barnes, co-director of the University of Virginia's Democracy Initiative and former domestic policy adviser for President Barack Obama, is interviewed on MSNBC about presidential transitions.

Melody Barnes