Power

Decades before Watergate, mobsters helped turn hearings into must-see television.

James Comey’s testimony joins the pantheon of dramatic congressional moments.

A new biography of Andrew Jackson recounts a bloody history, and reveals disturbing parallels between the 1830s and the Trump era.

A collection of photos of American Nazis – and the Americans who took a stand against them.

Ronald Reagan is at the heart of the modern American politics of advertising, public relations, and a television in every home.

Expansionism, and sending the military into others' lands, is a critical component of American republicanism, and a factor in independence itself.

Hillary Clinton is the most maligned presidential loser in history. What’s going on?

Richard Spencer is a troll and an icon for white supremacists. He was also my high-school classmate.

How the post-racial revolution became a whitewash.

A new look at the Declaration of Independence from 24 scholars across the country.

The history of American expansion can be traced through the severed body parts left in its wake.

Read this before you start printing tickets for an impeachment trial.

Preston Brooks, Greg Gianforte, and the American tradition of disguising cowardice as bravery.

How a little too much punch changed the course of the Confederacy.

There is a long history of congressmen behaving badly.

New Orleans at 300 returns with a story about a monument that was supposed to be erected in the late 1800s, but never happened.

Bureaucracy used to work through patronage, an informal system of job-distribution by the party in power. Why did it change?

Career bureaucrats in the Trump administration are proving that bureaucrats can be dedicated to a cause other than themselves.

California lawmakers debate barring Communist party members from government jobs.

It’s Andrew Johnson, not Andrew Jackson, who provides the best model for Trump’s collapsing presidency.

James Madison thought of a lot of good reasons to impeach a President. Members of Congress might want to consult his list.

It happened long before a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. 

Some call it "Russiagate," others "Comeygate." What are we really saying when we apply the Nixonian suffix?

Donald Trump is not the first person to gain power by questioning, undermining, and delegitimizing once-trusted institutions.

A journalist who covered Nixon’s fall explains why the current scandal may be more of a national emergency.

"The Color of Law" offers an indicting critique of the progressive agenda.

It started with a hatred of crony capitalism.

In the 19th century, Jackson broadened the electorate, but the self-righteousness of some Democrats impedes their efforts to do the same.

"Why could that one not have been worked out?"

Some issues aren’t amenable to deal making; some principles don’t lend themselves to compromise.