Power

The new Slate Academy finds the seeds of our present politics in the period after the Civil War.

The bullshit, the truth… and Trump.

We may not like it, but when it comes to U.S. politics, polarization may very well be part of the solution.

He fought to remake the center—not yield to it.

It's not as new as it seems.

Donald Trump writes the latest chapter in a long history.

Although Karl Marx never saw the U.S., he thought long and hard about how it fit into his theory, especially during the Civil War.

Hoover was a brilliant manager, a wizard of logistics, and an effective humanitarian. Why do we remember him as a failure?

What the political crisis in post-revolutionary America has to teach us about our own time.

From propaganda posters to Facebook ads, 80-plus years of Russian meddling.

Does the trope obscure more than it illuminates about the 2016 election?

Not yet—but it has precious few supporters on either the left or the right.

They're the hunters, not the hunted.

Trump challenges the press. Nixon changed it.

What was Arthur Schlesinger’s “vital center”?

Restricting the press backfires politically.

How America's founding era sheds light on the NFL controversy.

And why it was so hard to see it coming.

A CIA operative informed headquarters that before he was shot, the Cuban revolutionary "never lost his composure."

Lyndon Johnson wanted sweeping new gun control laws. Instead he got crumbs.

The ardent but flawed movement against World War I.

Nazi Germany has closer ties to America and its history of institutionalized racism than some may think.

The Second Amendment does not stand in the way of better gun laws; the NRA does.

How profit motives have driven two centuries of American gun laws.

It was defeated by the firearm lobby.

If not for three sparring Virginia delegates, Congress’s power to remove a president would be even more limited.

The story of one of the most effective and brutal spymasters in U.S. history, and the beginning of an infamous love affair with napalm.

The resurgence of the debate over the Sage of Monticello's legacy: Is Jefferson the ultimate patriot or ultimate hypocrite?

On the eve of a major redistricting case at the Supreme Court, a look back at what the nation's founders would have thought.

Because politicians prioritize military might over individual rights.