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Secret Service agent Paul Landis, JFK, and Jackie Kennedy in crowd.

A New JFK Assassination Revelation Could Upend the Long-Held “Lone Gunman” Theory

Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, largely silent for 60 years, says he found a bullet in Kennedy’s limo. Here's why that’s so significant, if true.
A political cartoon of Spiro Agnew holding an axe behind his back.

Oh, We Knew Agnew

On Spiro Agnew's lasting legacy.
Hands placing silhouettes of witnesses onto a chart using tweezers.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

How a mob statute metastasized.
John Birch Society banner over table with books

How the John Birch Society Won the Long Game

The American right doesn’t need the John Birch Society these days, but that is because it’s adopted the Birchers’ extremism wholesale.
The Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas, consumed by flames.

What Really Happened at Waco

Thirty years later, an avoidable tragedy has spawned a politically ascendant mythology.
A John Birch Society billboard in Stratton, Colorado, calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, December 1962.

The Fringe Group That Broke the GOP’s Brain — And Helped It Win Elections

The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP.
Trump speaking to a crowd; Robert Welch at a podium.

How Far-Right Movements Die

The decline of the John Birch Society offers possible strategies for containing the MAGA movement.
Marihuana revenue stamp $1 1937

1910s Cannabis Discourse and Prohibition

Does marijuana prohibition have racist origins? Where did ideas of “reefer madness” come from? This project looks to the historical record for answers.
Texas investigators and medical examiners stand on top of the ruins of the Mount Carmel compound.

How the Right Got Waco Wrong

Militia groups have long used Waco as a rallying cry. But it was never the example of whiteness under siege that they invoke.
Samuel Adams.

Hanged on a Venerable Elm

The shadow of Samuel Adams, a crafty and government-wary revolutionary, lingers over the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Lee Harvey Oswald in Police Custody

Decades Later, The JFK Assassination Still Keeps Some Secrets

A helpful way to think about the JFK assassination, and political assassinations more generally, is to be more Dragnet about it than discursive.
JFK and Jacqueline in the convertible limousine in Dallas.

A Weekend in Dallas

Revisiting political assassinations.
Robert De Niro as Gen. Dillenbeck, in "Amsterdam."

Did American Business Leaders Really Try to Overthrow the President, Like in "Amsterdam"?

How David O. Russell’s movie messes around with the story of the Business Plot.
Collage of various Republican faces and symbols.

The Long Unraveling of the Republican Party

Three books explore a history of fractious extremism that predates Donald Trump.
Photo from the January 6th Capitol Attack, with rioters raising a flag in front of a cloud of smoke by the capitol.

How the Republican Party Embraced Political Violence Before January 6th

On the alarming origins of the current political moment.
illustration of Civil War soldier carrying sack of gold

A Lost Trove of Civil War Gold, an FBI Excavation, and Some Very Angry Treasure Hunters

“I’m going to find out what the hell the FBI did and I’m going to expose it to the world.”
Members of the John Birch Society pledging allegiance to the flag at a meeting, Chicago, 1961.

The Birchers & the Trumpers

A new biography of Robert Welch traces the origins and history of the anti-Communist John Birch Society and provides historical perspective on the Trump era.
William F. Buckley Jr. in 1958.

When Right-Wing Attacks on School Textbooks Fell Short

Some essential lessons from an earlier culture war.
People looking down at words written in chalk on the street as a makeshift memorial of the Buffalo shooting.

The Terrifying Familiarity of the Buffalo Shooting Suspect’s Extremist Screed

The new fascists don’t wear uniforms; they make memes.
A 1939 photo of Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo (D) of Mississippi. (Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress)

The Roots of the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ Believed to Fuel Buffalo Suspect

The white supremacist conspiracy theory that has inspired horrific violence in the past five years dates back to Mississippi Sen. Theodore Bilbo.
People looking at the Tops grocery store where police are in the parking lot after a mass shooting.

Making Sense of the Racist Mass Shooting in Buffalo

An expert on the white-power movement and the “great replacement” theory puts the act of terror in context.
Image of Anita Hill.

Anita Hill Saw History Repeat Itself at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court Hearings

The key witness in Clarence Thomas’s nomination process discusses how sex and race shaped the new Justice’s experience, and her own.
Josh Hawley at Senate confirmation hearing

Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon

Josh Hawley’s attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are part of a long, sad tradition.
Elijah Muhammad, who was then the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaks to a crowd in Chicago in 1966.

What Do the Nation of Islam and Marjorie Taylor Greene Have in Common?

Stuart compares the shared values of Christian nationalists and the Nation of Islam in the 1960's and today.
A painting by Alfred Touchemolin showing French army recruits being inoculated with cowpox to protect them from smallpox, circa 1895

The Deep Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.
Political cartoon of Albert Gallatin attempting to stop a chariot driven by George Washington.

Nativism, Conspiracy Theories, and Mobs in Federalist America

Many people celebrate the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, but nativism has infused its politics from the outset.
The cover of the book "The Secret of Life"

Heels: A New Account of the Double Helix

How Rosalind Franklin, the crystallographer whose data were crucial to solving the structure of DNA, was written out of the story of scientific discovery.
U.S. Capitol riot

Echo Chambers

Parallels between the American Revolution and the U.S. Capitol riot.
Socialist deputies march with strikers on February 12 1934.

Feb 6 1934/Jan 6 2021

What do the two events really have in common?
George W. Bush speaking to marines

Why Did We Invade Iraq?

The most complete account we are likely to get of the deceptions and duplicities that led to war leaves some crucial mysteries unsolved.

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