Power

Trump inherits a branch of government already well equipped to undermine democracy.

Today's debate over sanctuary cities embodies a much longer debate in America over federalism.

The executive order that forced Japanese-Americans from their homes also put immigrants from Italy under surveillance.

In light of President Trump's temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, we take a look at larger immigration trends.

Andrew Jackson was the first president to carry a big stick: he beat a would-be assassin with a cane.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it's important to remember why America welcomes refugees.

From xenophobia to conspiracy theories, the Know Nothing party launched a nativist movement whose effects are still felt today.

The idea that birth on U.S. soil confers citizenship has remained both foundational and contested.

Twenty-one historians explain which moments in history are closest to the Trump election - and what we can learn.

On the origins of racial exclusion in the society that would become the United States of America.

Many compare the rise of "Trumpism" to that of 1930s Fascism. More worthwhile might be an examination of antifascist resistance.

Is he crazy, or crazy like a fox?

Why liberals have embraced our most dangerously reactionary founder.

Slave states gave us the Electoral College; we should get rid of this vestige of the so-called peculiar institution.

Comparing Trump's America to fascist Germany only fuels elites' antidemocratic fantasies.

Nixon sent Trump the letter in 1987 after he impressed the former first lady on television.

Trump ally Carl Higbie recently cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for a proposed registry of Muslims in the U.S.

Many Americans could have gone either way during the Revolution.

South Carolina’s Ben Tillman and the 2016 presidential election.

Invoking this vague and ever-shifting nemesis has been the right's favorite tactic, and Trump’s victory is its greatest triumph.

Two historians shed light on the atrocities of Native American enslavement and genocide.

Was Abraham Lincoln's the most tumultuous presidential transition in American history?

Is a psychological diagnosis a useful way to view racism-or does it merely absolve the racist of blame?

The Electoral College was created to help white Southerners maintain their disproportionate influence in national governance.

The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on slandering him.

Looking to history for an analogue to Trump’s victory does a disservice to the present and the past.

Review of The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution, by Michael J. Klarman.

How America's persistent preference for brash boys over "sivilizing" women fueled the candidacy of Donald Trump.

In the 1920s, women's love of driving in auto-obsessed Los Angeles created traffic jams and a battle over women’s rightful place.

The long, sad history of accusing women who seek power and influence of ugliness and ill health.