PLI Bulletin

Election Lies, Nonverbal Cues, Semi-Fascism and More

Posted on September 7, 2022

Grow Your Own Teacher Act: There are both short- and long-term problems with teacher recruitment and retention. The Grow Your Own Teacher Act is one solution. It provides college scholarships to worthy low-income public school graduates who are committed to teach in their own district’s high-needs schools.

The three pillars of fascism: Last week, President Biden declared that the “MAGA philosophy” is “semi-fascism” and right-wing heads exploded. It seems they have no idea what fascism is. To understand how we can accurately use the word ourselves, read the latest IdeaLog, our blog intended to raise eyebrows and engage minds.

Fighting back against election lies: An NPR Politics Podcast discusses some messaging that helps fight election disinformation. It’s much the same as PLI’s longtime advice to use pride and patriotism, e.g., “We are the leading democracy in the world…”

Turning Downtown Residential—Why it’s poised to happen: Young adults want to move to the center of cities and urban downtowns are full of empty office buildings. An article in Governing Magazine suggests that a conversion of offices to residences in inevitable.

Best and Worst States for Workers: For Labor Day, Oxfam released its report ranking the best (OR, CA, WA, NY, MA) and worst (NC, MS, GA, AL, TX) states for work. It’s described in Route Fifty.

How to improve nonverbal presentation: An audience decides whether it likes and trusts a speaker based much more on nonverbal cues than on what is said. This chapter in Voicing Our Values explains nonverbal persuasion.