More than 60% of rural Americans say that federal efforts to improve living standards don’t have an impact or make things worse. The Strong Towns initiative is working with residents, developers, and municipal planners to help countryside communities get back on their feet – on their own terms.

Research has found that people are using politics less for the change it effects in society, and more for the social label it earns them. As other markers of identity become less clear, politics is moving centre stage as a means of signalling belonging to the wider social group.

If Faisal Islam, Ralph Keyes and the New York Times are to be believed, the Trump candidacy and the vote for Brexit show we've entered a post-truth era – a world where emotion and populism win out over facts and experts. But is it true? And do emotional appeals really trump facts and figures?

The NRA’s latest advert is a call to arms that pits gun-toting Americans against those supposedly destroying their nation – but keeps this group unnamed. By leaving the aggressors anonymous, the NRA is playing off a polarised society that can find enemies in anything.