Issues

By Sara Radin Are you experiencing worry or panic, or uneasiness about what the future holds? On edge about the polarized battle between the incumbent presidential nominee Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, two powerful figures that could determine what the next four years of our lives look like? Do you find yourself either avoiding television and social media, or doomscrolling until the wee hours of the night? Well, you’re not alone. That uncomfortable thing you’re feeling right now could be election anxiety, something many of us are experiencing at heightened levels. I’m personally waiting for my stress to reach fever pitch — or for my emotions to straight-up explode like a soda bottle that’s been violently shaken and unopened for an extended period of time. For my own sak...

Last week, as part of MTV’s Vote For Your Life Stream digital event, Mark Kassen and his pal Chris Evans talked to young, first-time voters about what was driving them to the polls this year. The issues ranged from climate justice to health care and more — nuanced topics with discernibly different views on both sides of the American political spectrum. But how can you get an informed take on what those sides are in hopes of digesting the issue in totality? That’s where A Starting Point — the civic engagement platform co-founded by Kassen, Evans, and Joe Kiani earlier this year — comes in. Kassen, an actor who also directed Evans in the 2011 film Puncture, notes that, as they got more buy-in from elected officials in Washington, D.C., the site quickly evolved into an information...

By De Elizabeth “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your lives.” Those were the words of President Donald Trump on Monday, October 5, after spending 72 hours in Walter Reed Hospital where he was treated for coronavirus with a cocktail of drugs hardly any other American would be able to receive. At the time he tweeted his message, over 7.4 million people in the United States. had contracted COVID-19, with more than 210,000 dead. Later, on Thursday (October 8), Trump released a direct-to-camera video in which he described contracting the virus as a “blessing from God.” In many ways, Trump’s recent diagnosis felt inevitable, like the closing act of some Shakespearean tragedy. Since March, he’s continued to downplay the severity of the virus, promising it will sim...

President Donald Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, have tested positive for the coronavirus. The president revealed the news in the early morning on Friday (October 2) via a Twitter post from his personal account. “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19,” he wrote. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” The news of Trump’s positive test result arrived amidst a turbulent election season, after the coronavirus pandemic, the severity of which he downplayed for months, had killed over 207,000 Americans and sent the economy into a downward tailspin. Just days prior, during the meandering first presidential debate on Tuesday (September 29), the president assured the audience at home that the end of the pa...

By De Elizabeth On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory generated a series of questions for Sydney Greene. At the time, she was the vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists at Arizona State University, where she spent Election Day covering her classmates’ viewing parties. And while the night started off “electric” with the seeming promise of a historic Hillary Clinton win, by the time Trump was giving his victory speech, Greene felt a numbness take over. “What does this mean for me as a Black person in America?” Greene, now 24, recounts in a phone interview with MTV News. “What does this mean as a woman in America? What does this mean for the communities that I love? And, in the next breath, what does this mean for me as a journalist?” Cou...

“Voting is not an event. It is a process.” So says former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in our conversation following the select-theater release of All In: The Fight for Democracy. In the film and in our conversation, the former state rep makes the case that that process involves voting in midterm elections, engaging in local politics by attending community forums, and supporting advocacy groups like the one Abrams founded, Fair Fight, which calls for free and fair elections and more resources to educate voters. The distinction between voting as a “process” as opposed to an “event” is an important one, Abrams says, arguing that while a historic number of voters flocked to the polls for Election Day 2008, their lack of participation in the midterm election two years later co...

By Virginia Lowman During a chaotic year that has laid bare the divisive inequities within our society, music and art have often served as universal entities to ground us, tell our stories, and provide a sense of escape. Now, a new exhibition hosted by MTV pays homage to that sense of unity. Nestled appropriately within the belowground subway station at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue terminal at Barclays Center — that great mixing pot where riders from all walks of life brush elbows on a communal commute, as well as the initially planned home of the 2020 VMAs — the show takes over public advertising spaces to amplify the diverse work of eight emerging visual artists working in a variety of media. Conceptualized by MTV’s Rich Tu, Vice President of Digital Design, and Antonia Baker, Senior Direc...